Tony McNulty has rather more in common with our Home Secretary than a passing acquaintance with the hash pipe. A rare facility with money (so badly needed right now) and a sufficient lack of shame when claiming Parliamentary expenses. Let's face it, Tony could cycle in from Harrow, let alone commute.
It doesn't matter whether these spurious claims for expenses are within the rules or not. It wouldn't matter if they were signed off by the Pope or even God himself. They stink, and the same goes for the rotten politicians who claim them.
Mr McNulty has made the point that he was claiming against the cheaper of his two 'homes', and moreover that he recently stopped claiming the allowance at all. With interest rates being so low he can now cover his mortgage payments from his Parliamentary salary, he reassures us by way of explanation. I suppose the gullible might buy that, even if they harbour the faint suspicion that he was primarily motivated by the fear of exposure. The cynical however would rather suspect the opposite. He hadn't realised that Jacqui Smith's success in claiming on her family home (because it brought in more) was allowed, and he was intending to follow her example as soon as possible.
