There should of course be no reason why expense claims should vary in aggregate across party lines, yet they do. Guido reckons this says something significant about their attitude to the stewardship of taxpayer’s money. Of the 50 most expensive MPs 74% are Labour, 18% LibDem and one is a Conservative – David Mundell. The rest are SNP members who Guido will excuse on the clear grounds that they have, by definition, justifiably higher travel expenses.

The ten most expensive users of stationery are also Labour MPs, in category after category it is the same with Labour MPs always claiming the most. One stand out example of expense padding is from Janet Anderson, the Labour MP for Rossendale & Darwen. She has the most amazingly expensive car habit judging by her mileage allowance.* With a claim of £13,851 – which equates to a claim for over 50,000 miles – assuming she drives at an average of say 40 mph – that is 1,200 hours of solid driving, or 50 days and nights non-stop. Enter her for Le Mans!

The only honourable exception to Labour prolificacy is Dennis Skinner. Party leaders have no shame either:-

• Why does Dave claim £20,563 for staying away from home? We all know he lives in Notting Hill, the kids go to school locally, it is his primary residence isn’t it. Is he claiming the Witney constituency home is his primary residence? The same fiddle that the Yvette and Ed Balls pull?

• Why does Gordon claim £17,017 for the same when he already has his 10 Downing Street residence paid for by the taxpayer?

Out of 646 MPs only 54 don’t take the mortgage subsidy. Further digging would reveal how many are fiddling. You need to check your MP’s addresses online in the Land Registry records (costs a few quid) to see if the property is mortgaged. If it isn’t and they are claiming, they are fiddling. The expense breakdown in full is here.

Sir Michael White and the rest of the apologists for our political class like to claim that our politicians are largely uncorrupt. This is only because they have voted themselves transparent fiddles which may be legal, but are not right. In the private sector the same practises would lead to fraud charges or at the very least questions from the taxman. Our politicians have voted for themselves to be above the laws that they apply to the voters…

*She still manages to claim for rail travel more than hundreds of other MPs.

Credit : Via original number crunching from Letters from a Tory based on 2006/7 data.

UPDATE : The excusing of the SNP was poorly phrased and has been deleted from the above, for the purposes of this article Guido is excusing their high spending. As pointed out by many in the comments, David Mundell also holds a (or rather the) Scottish seat for the Tories, so he should be excused on the same grounds as the SNP. Guido did not research the location of all 646 seats because he has important cocktails to deal with. No doubt some of the other high spending LibDems and Labour MPs are Scottish. The general point is still good. Most of the highest spenders (ex-transport) are not from Scotland in any event.