Daily Mail Caught Distorting MPs' Expenses

If you dipped into the pages of The Daily Mail yesterday, you might have caught this story about MPs' expenses. As you might expect they've all got their noses in the trough again, according to the anonymous reporter who threw the piece together. Despite being on a hefty salary, we're told Stoke North MP Joan Walley claimed £4.95 for a map of the constituency she's been representing for 24 years. Sheryll Murray had the nerve to claim for 20p parking costs outside a surgery. And, most relevant to my interests, my local MP - Tristram Hunt - claimed 4p for 'travel within the constituency'.

Read that again. 4p. Four pence. 4% of one pound. Claimed by someone on £65,738/year.

It's an outrage!

Now, I wouldn't believe The Mail if it told me I was on fire, so I checked the story out for myself. And what a surprise. At best you could describe the 4p claim a deliberate distortion. At worst, it's an outright lie.

The 4p was part of a *breakdown* of mileage claimed by a member of staff from the Stoke Central constituency office. It works like this. If a meeting has been arranged with someone around the corner before a surgery at the other end of the constituency, instead of claiming for the total mileage of the trip the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority rules state this should be treated as two separate journeys. This is exactly what happened here. In fact, I believe the total claim was something in the region of 20-odd quid.

So there you have it. The Daily Mail have massively distorted a non-story in a rather desperate attempt to cash in on anti-politics cynicism. Seeing the 4p bit of their feature is complete bollocks, what's the betting the rest of it is little more than a colourful interpretation of the facts?