Jim Devine Must be Deselected

Another week, another Sunday Herald investigation from Paul Hutcheon nailing Jim Devine for expenses irregularities.

A few weeks ago it was thousands of pounds of mileage claims of which only £60 was passed on to the actual driver and car-owner.

Last week it was a £2,157 for rewiring costs that was paid in cash (!) to an individual that had a bogus address and was not registered at Companies House.

This week is a direct hit. £2,326 for his friend to build 66m of shelves which seemingly do not exist.

Devine's expenses are now under further scrutiny after it emerged the taxpayer was billed £2326 for joinery services carried out by the MP's local publican. According to the invoice, the sum was for supplying and fitting 66m of heavy-duty shelving - the equivalent of more than 200ft.

The individual whose name is on the invoice, Tony Moran, holds the licence for the eponymously-named Moran's Bar in Blackburn, West Lothian. The public house is yards away from Devine's home in the small town.

A visit to the constituency office deepened the mystery, as no shelving could be seen.

One senior Labour Party source said: "What does Jim Devine need all that shelving for, his presidential library?

"If this is not a case for Labour's so-called star chamber the party body investigating questionable MP expenses then I don't know what is."

Asked numerous times whether Moran received £2326 from his allowances, Devine repeated: "Tony Moran did no work for me in my office."


Whether to deselect Jim Devine must surely now be an open-and-shut case. On the face of it, he is up to his neck in all that is wrong with a system that has suffered from a lack of transparency.

He needs to go.


All good news for Lis Bardell, PPC for the SNP in Livingston who has an excellent chance of building on Angela Constance's good work in the 2005 by-election and winning through in the next General Election.