One doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry reading the Telegraph’s latest piece on MPs’ expenses. The paper reports that:
“Phil Woolas, the Home Office Minister, claimed for items of women’s clothing, tampons and nappies. The parliamentary rules only allow expenses which are “exclusively” for MPs’ own use so it is not clear these items were justified.”
It should be noted, however, that Woolas denies this. He says that he didn’t claim for these items and that they were just on the same receipts as things he did request reimbursement for.
Margaret Moran, though, is the most sickening case in this batch:
“Margaret Moran, the Labour MP for Luton, spent £22,500 of taxpayers’ money treating dry rot at her and her husband’s seaside house 100 miles from her constituency – days after switching her “second home” there.
The parliamentary authorities were concerned that the work broke the “spirit” of the rules. However, the MP’s claim was not blocked.
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