The original expenses scandal cost dozens of corrupt MPs their jobs, the worst offenders ended up behind bars. Now the rent-swapping sleaze that John Bercow is trying to cover up has been blown wide open. This morning Guido is listing the most shameless rent-swappers…

The usual suspects kept cropping up when Guido started digging around last week. Top of the pile was surprise, surprise Denis MacShane, outed in the Times this weekend. In addition to his property back in Rotherham – remember he rented his garage to himself on expenses for £125,000 – MacShame owns a £700,000 house in Pimlico just a few minutes walk from Parliament, which he rents out under the IPSA rules and then claims £1,450-a-month expenses to rent another home in London. Making cash off the back of the taxpayers when he has no reason to exploit the IPSA loophole except to enrich himself…

When The Times confronted him he claimed he had stopped doing it – convenient. We have some further questions for him, when did he stop the fiddle? Why can’t MacShame live in his posh Pimlico pad right next to Westminster? Why does millionaire MacShane have to bill the taxpayer rent for a house he doesn’t need to rent?

Because he is taking us for a ride. Again…

The Manchester Evening News is reporting that Andy Burnham is a rent-swapper. They accuse him of letting out a London home while renting another property in the capital at the taxpayers’ expense. It’s a bit odd given that the Guido did some digging around Burnham this morning and found that he has been claiming thousands of pounds worth of mortgage interest for his home on expenses. Either way a member of the Shadow Cabinet is taking public money to subsidise living in his London flat while renting out another London property at the same time. The people of Leigh should remember that in 2015. Many, many more to come…

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…

Peter Luff was one of the worst expense troughers – his expensive tastes demands from the taxpayers last time around included a £625 china service, £1,583 on dining room table, £500 for Aga servicing, £809.91 for a TV and another china set for £367 a few years later. In short he was one of the worst troughers caught in 2009 to survive the 2010 election.

He has responded to revelations that he is, surprise-surprise, a rent-swapper with a David Laws style defence that the taxpayer would have saved money if he had broken the rules rather than merely gamed the system. In the interests of fairness Guido reproduces his argument in full:

“The new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) expenses scheme did not allow MPs to claim the cost of mortgage interest. I could not, therefore, afford to live in my London flat and I had no choice but to sell it or to rent it out. Having only recently purchased it, I chose to rent it out and this information has been in the public domain for two years, it having been properly declared in the Register of Members’ Interests. 

IPSA specified that when MPs are away from home they must live in rented property or stay in a hotel. When I am in London, I now therefore live in a rented flat. This is not my preference – I would have preferred to continue to live in the flat I own, but IPSA’s well-meaning rules designed to safeguard the taxpayers’ interests and promote transparency oblige me to do so. Ironically, the costs to the taxpayer would have been lower had I been allowed to continue with my previous arrangements.”

The obvious question that is unanswered is why a Tory MP on £65,738 thinks that he can’t afford to live in the Kennington flat we have so lavishly furnished with tea sets for him – the mortgage was just £657 a month in 2007 and would be considerably less today with lower interest rates. The average wage in London is less than half what Luff earns. Luff is standing down at the next election before the voters kick him out. Good riddance…

The names are coming out. The names of MPs fiddling the system to maximise their expenses by renting their mortgaged property out so that they can then rent another property with the taxpayers picking up the bills for both. Say goodbye at the next election to Linda Riordan, the Labour MP for Halifax, not satisfied with earning three times as much as her constituents she employs her partner in her office on £42,500. Pushing their take from the taxpayer over the £100,000-a-year level.

That just isn’t enough for this little piggie, she rents out her London flat to another MP and skims off an extra £1,000-a-month in profit from the taxpayer, charging a rent of £1,560 on a property where her mortgage costs her some £500-a-month. She also claims £1,473 from the taxpayer to pay the rent for her own property. The combined £3,000 monthly claim represents an extra burden on the taxpayer which would not have been necessary had Riordan not contrived her tenancy. Housing benefits fraudsters go to jail for less.

UPDATE: Linda Riordan is a member of the hard left Socialist Campaign Group.

Her friend Helen Goodman MP thinks Guido is motivated by sexism:

@GuidoFawkes And what about all male MPs who do that? You tweeting them too or is your attack pure sexism?—
Helen Goodman (@HelenGoodmanMP) October 19, 2012

Incidentally, we’re working on more names – mostly male- from all parties…

Another batch of politicians, another expenses scandal. This morning’s Telegraph reveals that John Bercow is attempting under the cover of “security reasons” to cover-up the publication of another round explosive expenses documents that would expose a property merry-go-round between rent-swapping MPs.

Here Guido gives the “How-To” low-down on how sleazy MPs are swapping their rent to line their own pockets:

The first and most simple method of rent-swapping involves the MPs who make money renting out their own previously taxpayer-funded properties while claiming expenses to rent out homes nearby. According to The Telegraph Chris Bryant rents out his mansion flat in Bloomsbury while claiming £2,000 expenses for rent on another London property. We have repeatedly asked him for an explanation this morning without receiving any reply. The Speaker claims the truth cannot be released because it would pose a security risk. Laughable, Guido and anyone else who wants to know, already knows where he lives.

The second, far more serious, category of rent-swapping covers a handful of MPs suspected of renting out properties to each other, effectively an “I’ll pay yours if you pay mine” scheme. MPs are banned from renting homes to relatives but a loophole in the rules allows them to trouser huge sums of money by renting out properties to other current and former MPs. Bercow cites security reasons for not revealing the address or names of landlords, but there is absolutely no reason why he cannot release the names of the MPs involved in this form of rent-swapping. It is a cover up.

There is also potentially a third category: the so-called “phantom” rent swap. This involves the possibility of MPs telling the authorities they have moved when in reality they have not, and then swapping their rent on the quiet.

If these people were claiming housing benefit “Rent Swapping” like this would fall into the category of benefit fraud plain and simple, it is in the parlance of welfare fraud investigators a “contrived tenancy” punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment.

Stay tuned. There is more to come…

In what is possibly the most flagrant two fingers to public opinion since the last time MPs gave themselves a pay-rise, Westminster’s cash-guzzlers want to up their pay to almost £100,000-a-year. That’s despite a ComRes poll for IPSA finding that two thirds of the public already think MPs’ pay is too high, with one in three saying it is “much too high”. But then public opinion has never been particularly high up their agenda. We are the 66%…

The Standard have an interesting scoop this afternoon: a number of shamed expenses-hungry Labour MPs who lost their jobs at the last election are apparently planning comebacks in 2015. Guido is generously offering to run their campaigns free of charge:

• Dawn Butler – Dawn has lived in Brent all her life so she knows the issues that matter to you first hand. In fact, she’s such a dedicated Londoner that she claimed nearly £40,000 of your money for a second home, despite living within ten miles of Westminster! In her spare time Dawn likes to enjoy her “whirlpool” bath paid for by, you guessed it, the taxpayer (allegedly). Vote Dawn – no expense spared for a better Brent!

• Shahid Malik – They say there’s no rest for the wicked, but don’t tell that to Shahid. After a long day helping constituents the Dewsbury through-and-through Labour stalwart likes nothing more than to relax in his massage armchair. You’ve already shown your appreciation, you paid for it! Don’t sit around – vote for Shahid!

• Parmjit Dhanda – George Osborne certainly doesn’t have the experience to get us out of this economic mess, but Parmjit does. He’s a money expert, reportedly managing to get away with sneaking an extra £2,000 in mortgage payments by blaming it on “accounting adjustments”. If that’s the sort of financial nous you think we need in government – vote Dhanda!

Labour’s 2015 intake could really be something special…

Luxury hotels, extravagant drinks parties and first class travel across the world – just some of the things top BBC bosses have been claiming in expenses bankrolled by licence fee payers. Guido can reveal that the exclusive circle at the top of the BBC‘s management has claimed £399,870 in expenses in the last year. Licence fee payers will be shocked at the huge number of spurious claims made by executives on six-figure salaries.

Last week the Beeb fired creative director Alan Yentob from their management board after he claimed nearly £8,000 in business class flights to Los Angeles and New York. £183,000-a-year Yentob also demanded that the licence fee payer fork out £17 for a BlackBerry charger. Some of the most eye-opening claims relate to luxury hotels booked by BBC top brass. Risk director Mike Ford, whose salary exceeds £150,000, stayed in posh Kensington hotels such as the Copthorne Tara over a hundred times in the last year. Sue Inglish might be responsible for cutting back on this year’s party conference coverage but that didn’t stop her from staying at Liverpool’s famous Liner hotel for last September’s Labour conference. £270,000-a-year BBC One controller Danny Cohen stayed in Manchester’s five-star Lowry hotel on numerous occasions, more usually frequented by Premier League footballers. Tens of thousands were spent by BBC managers on first class train travel from London to Manchester following the relocation to the north last year.

Some of the more ridiculous receipts include the deliciously ironic Vision boss Tessa Finch’s £20 eye test and news manager Phil Fearnley’s claim for a short £7 taxi ride because it was “too late at night to walk”. Liam Keelan, Zarin Patel and Roger Wright asked for almost £1,000 between them to pay for expensive leaving parties. New director general George Entwistle claimed £457  for a ticket to Labour wonk-shop IPPR’s Oxford media convention.

Remember, this is all paid for by a flat tax licence fee of which the public has no choice but to pay. This comes out of your pocket…

Chasing Guido’s scoops on Euan Blair and Will Straw seeking office, Andy McSmith over at the Indy has thrown another name in the Nepotistic Labour legacy mix:

“Joe Dromey, younger son of Harriet Harman and Jack Dromey, is devoting a lot of time to work in the safe Labour seat of Lewisham Deptford, where the sitting MP, Joan Ruddock, will be 71 come the election.”

Shudder.

Mummy, Daddy and baby piggy all with their snouts in a Labour rotten-borough trough.

Fun fact about Jack Dromey – he cheats in pub quizzes.

Read in to that what you will…