Only in Britain............

I must admit I was a bit shocked when I heard about this this morning. He always seemed a likeable sort of bloke, but there was always a "why the hell is he needed on this programme?" feeling about him.

He knew what he was doing, and now he's going to have to pay the price. But to say "Hope he rots in prison" is a bit strong, isn't it? By no means am I condoning his actions, but £24K is a drop in the ocean when you consider the vast millions (billions?) that are lost to HMRC through "creative" tax avoidance schemes - a problem that parties of no persuasion have yet had the balls to deal with beyond mealy-mouthed utterances of intent.

agreed munch if the government stopped paying stupid amounts of our money for rent subsidy,s then rents would fall to an affordable level for ordinary folk the whole culture of benifit britain needs to be addressed ,sure punish abusers but its the system thats broken when a guy cant earn enough from a weeks work to support his family

I don't think he's particularly a hypocrite - yes what he did was wrong and he is now perhaps going to pay the price in a prison sentence (hopefully as well as paying the money back over time). He only did what the system allowed him to do and something that thousands of people still do.

What I fail to understand is how the money was being paid to him when people can clearly see he's on the TV and earning an income...

It will certainly end any TV career and he will now fall to the side and join other 'has beens'