How much are we still paying for Brown?

The story today of a pregnant woman being downgraded so Gordon Brown and his six aides could travel business class from Abu Dhabi to London may ring a bell with CoffeeHousers. We revealed last August that Brown has a taste for freebies, and that he was offering himself for $100,000 at speaking and award-giving engagements. For an extra $20,000 he would throw in his wife, Sarah.

The Mail on Sunday reports that one of the pregnant woman’s co-passengers was “livid, asking why it was necessary for all of [Brown’s team] to be travelling business — and if it was being paid for by the taxpayer.” He raises an interesting point. Tony Blair notoriously claimed a “pension” of £64k, and an £84k contribution for the costs of running his office. It is unclear if the same deal has been offered to Brown, and whether the taxpayer is in some way forking out for his forays to the Arab world and the Kennedy School of Misgovernment. On becoming PM, Brown made great play of saying that he would not take a Blair-style payoff. This is what makes it interesting to see what he’s claiming now: something tells me the royalties from his book will not keep him in Pol Roger.

BA are taking all the blame for the seat mix-up. But it does highlight an oddly sybaritic side to the former PM. It was a well-kept secret that he drank only champagne, but was paranoid about it turning up on his hotel bills so his aides often had to fork out in cash. I do wonder just what taxpayer expenses Brown is still taking up. He cost this country tens of billions in debt. It would be alarming if he is still running up the meter.