Public Money

The latest edition of Private Eye has another timely piece about Westminster MPs and what I would describe as a rather cavalier approach - towards spending public money.

Only this time an 'honourable' Labour member is in its sights.

"HP Sauce"

"Kevin Barron MP, chairman of the standards and privileges committee, said Denis McShane's illegitimate expenses claim was "the gravest case" he had ever come across.

What a sheltered life Barron must lead! Although his committee found it impossible to say how much McShane had claimed "outside the rules", they thought it "may have been in the order of £7,500".

The rules that he broke were thise stating that an MP can claim no more than three European trips a yea, with business-class travel and four-star hotels. McShane made more than three trips a year after 2005, in his capacity as Tony Blair's unpaid Euro-envoy, but he travelled on EasyJet and stayed with friends to keep the costs down to the same sort of level as would cover the officially sanctioned trips.

In total, his Euro-expenses between 2005 and 2008 came to about £12,000. That is what Kevin Barron describes as "the gravest case that has come before this committee". 

Can this be the same Kevin Barron who sold his taxpayer-funded flat at a £500,000 profit after the 2009 expenses scandal, and thene xploited a loophile in the rules (following the ban on MPs claiming mortgage interest) by renting a flat from fellow MP John Trickett so he could carry on claiming the hous9ng allowance? "    

Now there's a thing - an eye-watering profit of £500,000 all paid for by the public purse

And I wouldn't be in the least surprised if some of these Labour members who have benefited in this way - continue to regard themselves as good socialists.

I hope one of the newspapers publishes a list of all MPs who have made a small fortune from the London property market - on the back of their housing allowances.