THE CABINET: WHO'S WHO OF THIEVES

Gordon Brown - Prime Mentalist, Nutter, Thief & Bully

In common with other senior ministers, Mr Brown claimed public money for a second home even though he is provided with a grace-and-favour home in Downing Street.

When he was Chancellor, Mr Brown also made claims including £372 on subscription fees for satellite television; £723 for “cleaning services”; £650 on food; and £1,396 for painting and decorating.

Mr Brown also claimed £15 for lightbulbs.

Alistair Darling - Communist & Thief

Between 2003 and 2005, Mr Darling registered rooms in two flats in London as his main residence instead of the large home he shares with his wife Margaret in Edinburgh.

Using the same system exploited by Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, this allowed him to claim thousands of pounds for 'housing costs' towards his second home.

The Chancellor and his wife, Margaret, bought a large home in an opulent part of Edinburgh for £570,000 in 1998. Its value is now estimated to be £1.2million.

In 2003 Mr Darling took cheap lodgings with Lord Moonie, one of the peers at the centre of the 'cash for amendments' scandal, who owned and lived in a South London flat.

Mr Darling inhabited a single room in the £260,000 property in Lambeth, which Lord Moonie bought from Gordon Brown in 1992.

Commons rules required all ministers to designate their London homes as their main residence until 2004, after which they were told to list their 'main home'.

Between 2001 and early 2004, when he had no choice but declare Edinburgh as his 'second home', he claimed a total of £45,954 towards his family house.

However, the Chancellor continued to list the room in Lord Moonie's flat as his main residence after the rule change gave him the choice.

This enabled him to claim a further £15,341 in the 2004-05 financial year for his Edinburgh home. In contrast, the typical rent for a room in flat in Lambeth was about £150 per week, or £7,800 per year.

Mr Darling then moved to a room in another flat, again listing it with the Commons as his main residence. In the 2005-06 financial year he claimed a further £19,436 in respect of his second home.

The first five months of this year's claim was made in respect of his family house, before he finally decided to designate it as his main home in September 2005.

In total he claimed more than £70,000 for his second home over five years, including almost £25,000 in the two years after the rule change.

Jack 'Torture' Straw - Thief, Communist & War Criminal

On July 20, 2008, two months after learning that MPs’ expenses would be made public, Mr Straw sent a handwritten note to the fees office confessing that he had spotted an error and enclosing a cheque to refund the money.

In the two-page note, marked “in confidence”, Mr Straw admitted that since 2004, when he was foreign secretary, he had filed expenses claims for council tax at his constituency house in Blackburn, Lancs, at the full rate, receiving between £807 and £943 a year.

At the same time, he had been paying his local authority half that amount by registering the property as his second home and claiming a discount in his council tax as a result. He wrote: “I have been checking my claims since 04, and I have realised that my claims for Council Tax have been incorrect.”

Nick Brown - Thief

The man who has been put in charge of investigating questionable expense claims by Labour MPs also claimed £200 a month for “repairs”, £200 a month for “service and maintenance” and £250 a month for a cleaner, without submitting any receipts.

Between 2004 and 2008, Mr Brown, the MP for Newcastle East and Wallsend, claimed a total of £87,708 for his constituency home.

His mortgage interest repayments in 2007-8 totalled £6,600, but Mr Brown claimed a total of £23,068, just £15 below the maximum allowable amount for the year, by including £4,800 for food – the maximum allowable amount – £2,880 for “repairs and insurance”, £2,880 for services, £897.65 for cleaning, £1,640 for phones and £1,810 for utilities.

He did not submit any receipts in that year for utilities, phones, cleaning, services, repairs or food.

Harriet Harman - Nutter & Thief

Caught claiming for party political propaganda. Harriet Harman breached Commons' rules on office expenses by claiming for propaganda to be published on tax-payer funded reports, leaflets and website.

Spent thousands on expensive gadgets.

Andrew Burnham - Transgender Thief

Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, was involved in a secret eight-month battle with the fees office after making a single expenses claim for more than £16,500 to buy and renovate a new London flat.

The authorities finally agreed to pay the money — after rejecting the claim on three separate occasions — following a series of increasingly desperate pleas from the minister and his wife.

Shortly before Christmas 2005, Mr Burnham even wrote to the fees office that he “might be in line for a divorce” if reimbursement for his expenses was not forthcoming within days.
In July 2007, Mr Burnham attempted to reclaim the costs of buying a £19.99 bath robe from Ikea.

The purchase was made the fortnight after he joined the Cabinet and the claim was later turned down by the fees office. Mr Burnham said last night that the claim was a “genuine oversight”.

Avoided paying tax on a £16,600 property windfall


John Hutton - Thief

John Hutton used expenses which ended up in Party coffers, spent taxpayers' money on advertising and rugby league matches and used office expenses to pay for a degree studied by a member of his staff.

Doeglas Alexander - Thief & Halibut

Douglas Alexander spent a total of £20,000 taxpayers money on a 'media makeover', breached Commons' rules on office expenses by claiming for propaganda to be published on tax-payer funded reports, leaflets and website and spent taxpayers' money on advertising and rugby league matches.


Ed Miliband - Nice but Dim



Ed Balls - Criminal Conspirator & Thief

Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary and one of Gordon Brown’s closest allies, claimed £33 for two Remembrance Sunday poppy wreaths — and had the bill disallowed by the Commons authorities.

Mr Balls also asked taxpayers to pick up the cost of a brass plaque and plinth and a book about Left-wing rebel Labour MPs who attempted to undermine Tony Blair’s leadership when he was Prime Minister.

Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper, the husband and wife Cabinet ministers, “flipped” the designation of their second home to three different properties within the space of two years.

In May 2005, after Mr Balls was elected MP for Normanton, Miss Cooper “flipped” her second home to the family house she shared with her husband and their three children in south London. The couple both began claiming a half share of the £1,466 mortgage interest, a sum of £733 each compared with the £530 she had been paying in Yorkshire.

Two years later, in May 2007, the couple moved again, to a larger, £655,000 property in north London which they designated their second home. Their mortgage interest payments increased to just over £1,031 each.

They also put the bill for the £2,000 cost of removal vans and men on their parliamentary expenses.

At one point, Miss Cooper and Mr Balls, the Children’s Secretary and a close ally of Gordon Brown, had their expenses docked, after each submitted two monthly claims for mortgage interest of nearly £1,300.

At the time, their mortgage statements showed the interest-only element of their mortgage stood at £733.


Yvette Cooper Balls - Criminal Conspirator & Thief

See Above


John Denham - Thief

Ministers who have made claims using other tax advisers include Tessa Jowell, the Olympics minister; John Denham, the universities secretary; Caroline Flint, the Europe minister; and Angela Eagle, a Treasury minister.


Hilary Benn - Thief

Hilary Benn used expenses which ended up in Party coffers. Ministers who claimed for personal tax advice bills included Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary.


David Miliband - Boy Thief

Ministers who claimed for personal tax advice bills included David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary.

The Daily Telegraph disclosed last week he spent just under £30,000 over five years on repairs, decorations and furnishings for the £120,000 semi-detached property in South Shields.

Mr Miliband's spending on his constituency home was so extensive that even his gardener questioned whether some of the costs were strictly necessary.

Alan Johnson - Front runner to replace the Prime Mentalist as so far he appears not to be a Thief.

Jacqui Smith - Well Known Thief, Idiot & Home Economics Teacher

She claimed at least £116,000 of the commons second home allowance on her constituency home in Redditch, where her family live, by designating her sister's house in south-east London as her main home.

Smith insisted she had done nothing wrong and said her accommodation arrangements were fully in line with commons rules.

But yesterday the home secretary was again in the firing line when she had to apologise for an expenses claim which included two adult films viewed at their home.

The Sunday Express said documents going back to 2001 show Smith had claimed £150,304 for the cost of running a second home since 2001, including the films.

The expenses covered council tax, utilities and insurance but also included:

• a Habitat stone kitchen sink worth £550
• a dining room table worth £460
• a sofa bed at £704
• a reclaimed antique-style fireplace costing £1,000
• a £399 Hotpoint cooker plus £15 connection
• a £189 Hotpoint tumble dryer
• two washing machines, worth £550 over two years
• home entertainment included DVD players, two Samsung widescreen TVs and two digital set-top boxes worth more than £1,100
• an 88p bath plug
• the bill from Virgin Media which included the two 18-rated "additional features" which cost £5 each to view. The phrase is said to be used as a euphemism for films with adult content
• the Virgin Media bill also shows the film Ocean 13 starring George Clooney was viewed on two nights at £3.75 a time plus the film Surf's Up which cost £3.50

Peter Mandelson - Thief with Previous

Lord Mandelson billed taxpayers almost £3,000 for work carried out on his constituency home in Hartlepool less than a week after he announced his decision to stand down as an MP.

The Business Secretary renovated the terrace house in 2004 before selling it and making a profit of £136,000.

The timing of the claims raised questions over whether Lord Mandelson stayed within parliamentary rules that banned MPs from carrying out improvements to their properties that would lead to an increase in their value. He was one of several MPs who appeared to have used allowances to have work carried out on their second homes before they gave up their seats and sold their properties.

Lord Mandelson also charged a total of £450 for food in August and September 2004, which he claimed he had consumed while “staying overnight away from home”, as well as £100 per month for newspapers and £150 per month for cleaning. He did not submit receipts as parliamentary rules at the time did not require them for any claim below £250. The threshold has since been lowered to £25.

etc etc


Baroness Royall - Apparently Honest Party Drone



Hazel Blear - Midget Thief


Miss Blears, who as Communities Secretary is responsible for housing policy, also spent time in one of London’s most fashionable hotels paid for from public funds.

In March, 2004, Miss Blears stated that her second home was the property she owned in her Salford constituency.

During that month she bought an £850 television set and video recorder from Selfridges, and a £651 mattress from Marks & Spencer.

Her mortgage on the Salford property, which she has owned with her husband since June, 1997, was £300 a month.

The following month she changed her declaration and began claiming that a flat in Kennington, south London, was her second home. She started claiming £850 a month for the mortgage on the flat.

In August, 2004, she sold the flat for £200,000, making a profit of £45,000. The buyer was Baroness Henig, a former Labour MP from Lancashire.


Shaun Woodward - Rich Thief

Shaun Woodward, the Northern Ireland Secretary, claimed £23,083 for his second home, even though he and his wife Camilla, an heiress to the Sainsbury family fortune, are worth at least £15 million.

The couple have a £6 million townhouse just 200 yards from parliament, where Peter Mandelson once sought refuge after being sacked, and a 17th century mansion in Oxfordshire, worth £8 million.

Shaun Woodward, millionaire minister, received £100,000 to help pay mortgage

But Mr Woodward is thought to claim the second homes allowance for a terraced house in his St Helens constituency which he bought shortly after defecting to Labour from the Conservative Party in 2001.


Geoff 'Hoon' - Thief

It can also be disclosed that Geoff Hoon, the Transport Secretary, did not pay capital gains tax on the sale of his London home in 2006.

Mr Hoon is believed to have made a profit of around £300,000 on the London home he sold in 2006. The property had been rented out for four years before it was sold. During this time, he had lived in a grace-and-favour flat in Whitehall and owned a substantial “family” home in Derbyshire. Within months of changing ministerial positions and leaving the grace-and-favour property, Mr Hoon sold the London house, telling the tax authorities that it was his “principal” residence. He then bought another London property and claimed expenses on that.


James Purnell - Soap Dodging Thief

James Purnell, the Work and Pensions Secretary, avoided paying capital gains tax on the sale of his London flat after claiming taxpayer-funded expenses for advice from an accountant, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

The Cabinet minister saved thousands of pounds after informing the parliamentary authorities that Manchester was his “main” home while the tax authorities considered London to be his “primary” residence. Mr Purnell claimed for a £395 accountant’s bill that included “tax advice provided in October 2004 regarding sale of flat” on parliamentary expenses which are intended to cover the costs of running an MP’s office.

THE CABINET: WHO'S WHO OF THIEVES