Expenses rules state that MPs can only travel in first in the unlikely event that it is cheaper than a standard fare. That hasn’t stopped three legroom-loving MPs from bending the rules, however. Energy minister John Hayes made the journey from his Lincolnshire constituency to Westminster in first 28 out of the last 30 times, costing the taxpayer on average over £60 a pop. Standard tickets are usually as cheap as £19 if they are booked in advance or £37.50 if you turn up on the day.  He’s not alone…

Former Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnson has a 100% record, travelling from Hull in first class 19 times out of 19. He billed us almost £100-a-journey on average, three times what you can pay with a week’s notice. And as for Leeds MP Fabian Hamilton? 29 of his 30 train journeys were in first at £72 a go, as much as double the standard fare.

A well-placed parliamentary source explained to Guido how greedy MPs cheat the system by seeking out the few journeys where buying a first class ticket technically doesn’t break the rules. It’s Great Train Snobbery, pure and simple…

They tried to cover up the rent-swapping scandal, their boss even spends his time trying to convince the public that piggy MPs deserve our trust. Now Guido has learned that IPSA, the parliamentary standards authority set up to hold fiddling expenses cheats to account, tips off MPs facing expenses exposés. Two weeks before they release Freedom of Information responses containing details of MPs’ expenses, conveniently IPSA tip-off the Member in question to warn them of what is to come.

One parliamentary source told Guido that their boss was well aware of the information about to be disclosed to this blog some fourteen days before it was eventually released. This gives expenses cheats two whole weeks to cover their tracks and prepare for the bad headlines. Crucially it gives them enough time to change what they are claiming and putting them on the front foot in fire-fighting allegations.  IPSA are supposed to be independent, yet here are in cahoots with the troughers…

Spare a thought for poor old Yvette Cooper. As Guido reported in his Daily Star Sunday column, the Shadow Home Secretary was left stranded in the snow by her husband this weekend:

“YVETTE Cooper, the MP and wife of Ed Balls, tweeted early yesterday about the “beautiful, sun rising over a snowy Castleford” and said she would not be deterred by several inches of snow from setting out for Pontefract in her West Yorks constituency to go knocking on doors with “walking boots, ski gloves and a bacon sandwich”. A few minutes later she tweeted a pic of a snow-covered car and commented: “Hmm. Seems car has other ideas. V embarrassing. Am going to have to get @EdBallsMP to help push.” At least the sun was shining and if anyone is experienced at pushing someone out, it is Ed Balls. Just ask Tony Blair.”

She never made the journey…

Meanwhile Guido has uncovered some intriguing details over Cooper’s expenses claims. At the end of 2011 Yvette charged the taxpayer over £600 for the “specialist internet support” of an undisclosed computer ‘expert’. Guido has learned that the money was paid to one Ellie Gellard, the very same famous-for-twitter Ellie Gellard who worked as Balls’ speech-writer and bag carrier.

The claim was made in the very month that Balls unsuccessfully tried to convince his Shadow Cabinet colleagues to take Gellard on as a Political Adviser. Labour have always seen taxpayers’ cash as a way to help out their friends…

Shamed expenses cheat Denis MacShane will not be prosecuted…for swearing down a megaphone during a demonstration last year. The former Rotherham MP was reported to the police after launching a four-letter tirade in front of a crowd in October, but no further action is to be taken due to lack of evidence.

He might not be so lucky the next time the cops come calling…

£53,000 expenses cheat Margaret Moran’s lawyer has delivered a withering rant about how terribly out of order the press are for reporting her crimes:

“The more vengeful press, who hound her at her front door, seem to think that the only way someone can be demonstrably mentally ill is if they are in a straitjacket in a padded cell. The reports back in April all agree that she suffers from this mental illness. Hounding a mentally ill woman is a dangerous and vile thing to do, at any time, particularly post the Leveson conclusions. It could have led to an increased risk of suicide. There will always be sections of the media who believe it’s a huge con. But they’ve not read all the evidence.”

At least Craig Oliver did it subtly…

Via @SophyRidgeSky

Expenses cheat Margaret Moran was “too depressed” to attend court to hear her sentence this morning, but she faces a two-year supervision and treatment order as ‘punishment’ for her £53,000 swindle. This expenses piggie was found to have committed 15 counts of false accounting. The judge says some will say “she got away with it”. Moran isn’t the first expenses cheat to dodge jail, and she won’t be the last…

Maria Miller has been well and truly skewered by the Standard this afternoon during an interview in which she tried to play down allegations about her expenses. Did Sir Thomas Legg, the man who carried out the first independent audit into her second home claims, know that her parents lived in the property? “I obviously spoke to the Fees Office about my claims and they were happy that everything was in order”. Hardly a yes.

Who was the second independent auditor? Joe Murphy reports that “The Culture Secretary replied that it was the Conservative Party which “audited all Conservative MPs’ expenses”.  Her definition of independent may raise some eyebrows as the Tory panel was headed by the then Chief Whip and David Cameron’s chief of staff”. Most suspect of all was Miller’s answer to the charge that her decision to stop claiming just as the expenses scandal broke was more than coincidence:

“”I think there was a lot of concern about the rules and, er, a lot of concern about, you know, the whole issue, and it’s something I felt that I didn’t want to be, sort of, mixed up in, the fact that I …”  Mrs Miller finally stopped trying to explain herself, and simply said:  “I just made that decision.””

She will have to do better than that when John Lyon comes calling…

Labour rent-a-quote John Mann has this afternoon registered a complaint with John Lyon, the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, over reports that Maria Miller breached expenses rules by claiming £90,000 for a second home lived in by her parents.

“Maria Millar’s (sic) circumstances are identical to those of Tony McNulty who allowed his parents to live in his second home rent free and the Committee on Standards and Privileges ruled that he had broken the rules.”

People close to Miller point out that her arrangements have been cleared twice as being wholly proper, as well as pointing out that it’s not her parents home, stressing that it’s her own property that her parents live in, with her, and have done for 20 years. Could it be a strange case of breaking the letter of the law but not the spirit? Mysterious…

A busy day for Maria Miller today, and not least because this morning’s Telegraph reports that the Culture Secretary has claimed £90,000 in expenses for the mortgage payments and other costs of a second home lived in by her parents. IPSA rules require second homes to be used exclusively by MPs.

Claiming for a property lived in by an MP’s parents is “specifically prohibited”. 

Guido can reveal that Miller has two properties in her name: a cottage in her Basingstoke constituency, and the property pictured above in Wimbledon.

The Wimbledon property was purchased by Miller and her husband in 1996 for £234,000, and will be worth at least three times that now. Although expenses rules clearly state that second homes must be lived in exclusively by MPs, Miller’s parents lived in the property while she spent most of her time in Basingstoke main home between 2005 and 2011. She stopped claiming in 2009, days before the expenses scandal broke.

The Telegraph story coming out on this day of all days is surely nothing more than coincidence…

A laughable interview on the Today programme this morning by Sir Ian Kennedy, the head of IPSA and the man in charge of a review of MPs’ pay. Kennedy says it is time to trust MPs again on expenses:

“Two and a half years ago Parliament was mired in controversy about expenses scandal and looks what’s happened in those two and a half years: an independent body has been created, we’ve addressed business costs, we’ve addressed expenses, we’ve got a good system in place which works. What we’ve got to do is say, look, 2009 is not back with us. MPs are not in a situation where they’re not to be trusted and that there’s no system in place. Quite the opposite, there’s a new system and it’s quite unfair to say that MPs are not to be trusted.”

He must have forgotten all about Stephen Dorrell, Denis MacShane, Margaret Moran, Linda Riordan, Meg Munn, Andy Burnham, Chris Bryant, Helen Grant, Bill Cash, John Whittingdale, Peter Luff, Jessica Lee, David Amess, Kevin Barron and Don Foster. And that’s just during the last month…