Merrick wrote:
As soon as people see words like 'swimming pool', 'tennis court', 'chandelier' and - my favourite - 'moat' it says 'vast luxury like you and everyone you know never get', and there's nothing that can convince us it can be 'reasonable' for us to be paying anything towards it.
Eric Joyce who is fairly local to us is well known for being either the 1st or 2nd highest claimee in the whole land when it comes to expenses.
Because that is mainly for travelling expenses, it does not seem as newsworthy. Bath plugs and indeed moats are far more so it seems.
However, although some of this is so that he can flirt between Europe and back (doing feck knows what), and that he has *vowed to try* to reduce the cost of his travelling, he also claims for expenses to visit his estranged family.
Now, how many men and women get help with that sort of thing? It's a personal responsibility thing, right? I don't think this has made the Telegraph hit list (I may be wrong), but why not?
His constituency office is also a nice little converted cottage where some of the others get by with several rooms in a shared office block.
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