Musket: Some MPs have gone to prison and for quite a lot less. Denis MacShane being a recent example.

It's not the amount of money obtained immorally that dictates whether a prosecution should be brought or not, but whether a law was actually broken and what the likelihood of a conviction is.

Dennis McShane was originally investigated for expenses irregularities, paid money back apologised etc, and the police flagged his case for "no further action". It then came to light that he'd actually knowingly created a bunch of fake receipts, which therefore re-opened the case as the situation now involved pre-meditated criminality.

Miller may or may not have pre-meditated or intentionally "forgot" to adjust her mortgage interest claims, but it would be a lot harder to prove guilt there than in McShane's case where there was direct evidence of forgery.

I hate the immoral use of expenses "rules" as much as the next person, and as I said in my original post, think she should have resignerd long ago....but on the other hand, I see a lot of "baying for blood" among people who seem to have a different understanding than I do of how the law works and how parliamentary expenses worked back in 2009 when this happened.As far as I can see, there's no way she could possibly be prosecuted over the home "flipping", the excess profits she made or the way she used the Capital Gains Tax rules. It was all within the rules at the time she did it, so although it was hugely immoral, none of that was actually criminal.

Of course, my understanding may be faulty, as Richard made the original post here with a strong indication that he thought she should be prosecuted for criminal fraud....hence my question to him regarding *what* fraud she could be legally prosecuted for?