IPSA say MPs renting out property they own “is an issue of their own private financial affairs over which we rightly have no authority”,  hinting that they will review the loophole that allows MPs to rent from other MPs. It will be part of a public consultation next month and Guido suspects that the public are not going to like the fact that some 124 MPs have income from renting property they own and 27 of them are renting flats in London despite the fact that they already own property in the capital.

Despite this, Guido hears the more feeble parts of the Lobby are hesitant with hacks divided as to how heavy to go on this taxpayer subsidised property racket. Hacks for the popular press are grumbling that ‘the FT and Bloomberg are behaving like hand-jobs’ for MPs while the Telegraph, Sun and the Mail want to gun for them over the latest expenses scandal. The argument that because IPSA signed this off it must sounds dangerously like the defence employed in 2009. It didn’t last long that time either…