{"id":27224,"date":"2018-08-28T17:29:39","date_gmt":"2018-08-28T16:29:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/?p=27224"},"modified":"2018-08-28T17:29:39","modified_gmt":"2018-08-28T16:29:39","slug":"local-mp-used-taxpayers-money-to-gag-jewish-ex-lover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2018\/08\/28\/local-mp-used-taxpayers-money-to-gag-jewish-ex-lover\/","title":{"rendered":"Local MP used Taxpayers Money to gag Jewish ex-lover"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Birmingham Labour MP has been accused of paying off his Jewish Parliamentary assistant with taxpayers\u2019 money after she accused him of religious discrimination. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Khalid Mahmood, MP for Perry Barr, was taken to an employment tribunal by his former lover and assistant Elaina Cohen but the case was settled out of court.<\/p>\n

During his relationship with Miss Cohen, Mahmood 57, was criticised for claiming nine nights at a luxury hotel in Kensington costing \u00a31,350 in 2009.<\/p>\n

The expenses watchdog Ipsa, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, has now come under fire as it is revealed the transparent expenses system can be used to fund secret gagging orders.<\/p>\n

Official records show Mr Mahmood claimed \u00a3900 expenses for \u2018lawyers\u2019 fees\u2019, and \u00a31,500 in \u2018legal costs\u2019.<\/p>\n

During the tribunal he was also granted nearly \u00a337,000 from Ipsa to pay staff covering for Miss Cohen.<\/p>\n

Disputes of religious discrimination first surfaced when Mr Mahmood disciplined Miss Cohen after she called another Labour MP, Naz Shah, an \u2018anti-Zionist\u2019 in a tweet in 2016.<\/p>\n

Mr Mahmood suspended his former lover and began an internal disciplinary process against her.<\/p>\n

Her religious discrimination claim was settled out of court in 2017.<\/p>\n

Although Miss Cohen, 60, is bound by the gagging order and unable to discuss the detail of the case, she criticised Mr Mahmood\u2019s use of taxpayers\u2019 cash to fund his legal case.<\/p>\n

She said: \u2018I complained to Ipsa several times on the unfairness of substantial public funds being used. Ipsa should not be funding MPs in actions against their members of staff.<\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019re in the middle of an anti-Semitism storm, and I had two years of hell over two tweets trying to bring it to the party\u2019s attention.\u2019<\/p>\n

Sir Alistair Graham, the former chairman of the committee on standards in public life, called for more transparency in the expenses system.<\/p>\n

\u2018If public money is involved, there should not be secret deals like non-disclosure agreements used to resolve staff issues,\u2019 he told the Telegraph.<\/p>\n

\u2018This is about transparency. Both the public and Mr Mahmood\u2019s constituents should be able to see how he has come to spend so much public money.\u2019 Mr Mahmood told the Telegraph last night: \u2018There was an agreement that was signed which forbids me to go into any details in relation to [the case].<\/p>\n

\u2018This is not an expense which is unwarranted. Part of the problem with this is it puts all the burden on Members of Parliament, without having any real support to deal with this sort of situation, when such an issue arises with staff in offices.\u2019<\/p>\n

He added that Ipsa was \u2018fully aware\u2019 that the money was to deal with his discrimination case and its subsequent costs.<\/p>\n

Although full-time Parliamentary assistant jobs have a salary of \u00a331,000, Mr Mahmood spent nearly \u00a337,000 on the part-time cover \u2013 including an \u00a38,016 overspend \u2013 according to the Telegraph.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Ipsa told the newspaper yesterday: \u2018MPs may apply for a contingency payment for costs which are not covered by the [MPs\u2019 expenses] scheme or where they expect to exceed a particular budget.<\/p>\n

\u2018Applications are considered by the Contingency Panel who assess whether there are exceptional circumstances warranting extra support.\u2019<\/p>\n

In relation to Mr Mahmood\u2019s \u00a38,016 overspend, Ipsa refused to say whether it would, or had, taken any action against him for the nine-month delay to repay it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Birmingham Labour MP has been accused of paying off his Jewish Parliamentary assistant with taxpayers\u2019 money after she accused him of religious discrimination. \u00a0 Khalid Mahmood, MP for Perry Barr, was taken to an employment tribunal by his former lover and assistant Elaina Cohen but the case was settled out of court. During his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1225,"featured_media":27225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,37,3,112],"tags":[264,1469,1470,1468,1471],"class_list":["post-27224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-local-news","category-news","category-top-stories","tag-birmingham","tag-jewish-parliamentary-assistant","tag-khalid-mahmood","tag-labour-mp","tag-sir-alistair-graham"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1225"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}