In 2018 Guido revealed that MP and anti-Brexit campaigner Damian Collins had spaffed £30,000 on a fake news ‘fact finding’ jolly to the US; comprising flights, luxury hotel rooms, food allowance and Amtrak tickets. It now seems Damian’s about to get another taxpayer-funded jolly thanks to a motion passed in Parliament a few weeks back. The change, approved by the House, will allow his cross-house Committee for the Draft Online Safety Bill to convene outside of the UK, “from place to place”. He and the Committee will soon be heading to Brussels…

The impending cost of Damian’s latest planned trip is raising even more eyebrows among those in the know that his last. His 2018 trip was in the role of elected chair of the DCMS Select Committee; this time he’s playing an unelected role, given to him as a consolation prize by the party. One sceptical colleague suggested it’s going to be nothing more than a “vanity project for yesterday’s man.”

One MP who attended Collins’ US jamboree noted to Guido it’ll be interesting to see whether he manages to keep costs under control this time. In 2018 he gave himself a luxury penthouse suite in the New York Benjamin Hotel, with his own bar area, while all the rest of the MPs were in normal rooms. Once again, Guido asks: has the Committee not heard of Skype?