What gets me about all this is every all the other parties are upto the same crap but only labout are being hung out. The details of all MP's expenses were about to be made public anyway but the twist was that all MP's were given a chance to view what was going to be disclosed and were being allowed to edit the disclosures "with a black marker pen". Isn't it funny that the rest of the cross party MP's are keeping very quiet.

Its the system thats at fault not the MP,s its funny tho when you see some of the things that have been claimed by certain MP,s

and like Andy said he under claimed he could have claimed another £40,000 Daft Sod he should have claimed it like all the others can just see it 100 Leigh Centurions Team kits 5 Servants all speaking Aussie

ex NRL RL Players

Well my view is you can,t do your job as an MP without an IKEA bathrobe but think £16500 to buy and renovate a flat in London seems reasonable enough.



My MP Hazel Blears, however, well of course she has acted within the rules.



Regarding the other parties MP,s claims don,t the press, when running a story like this, save the best to the last.



It doesn,t surprise me. I remember when Thatcher gave council tennants the right to buy at knock down prices. We had several wealthy Conservative MP,s offering elderly couples, particularly in Westminster, to buy the property and live there rent free for the rest of their natural lives provided the said property was signed over to the same MP when they ended their days.



And on another subject £2 for todays reserve game for a person on a fixed income is outrageous. I shall have to drop in on one of my kids and ask them to lend me the money.

Well now we know why Andy voted against expenses reform. His claim for £16500 to play the property game was apparently rejected 3 times out of hand by a system already percieved to be something of 'A gravy train'. Therefore we can only assume that it was not wholey neccessary...



His hand written letter claiming that his wife was about to divorce him if the fee was not paid is just pathetic

Be it a Labour or Tory Goverment in power, the spotlight was always inevitably going to fall on cabinet ministers.

I took the hand written note about divorce to be tongue in cheek. Bear in mind he was fairly high up the food chain at that point, there was a reasonable chance he was writing to someone who he was familiar with.



£16k to do up his London flat isnt excessive, we've seen a whole lot worse.

Isnt he a born and bred Leyther? probably used to claiming benefits just like the rest of your town.





...............

Yea but 99% of those are immigrants!

Real Leythers don't wear bath robes

He is from Culcheth!



Reckons to be some kind of Scouser, so could be related to you!

Now you have got to





at that Vikingman

You've not met Frankie





Seriously, though, this is all a storm in a teacup. If it's in the rules and they've claimed it, so what? isn't that like any other job?



My mate's missus gets sent all over the world with her job... the deal is they pay business class airfare, but she can choose to go economy and they'll pay for the rest of the family too. You might say if she's willing to go economy, why pay for the rest? but it's in the rules, so its OK. Don't see that splashed across the paper.



Now, if they'd been nicking money, that'd be different. But 'MP's keep to the rules' shock? Naah. Non-event.