Liberals in literature and films (11)

"Some Tory MPs spend the week in their clubs, camping out in attic bedrooms but lounging in some of the more elegant of London's drawing rooms...Labour MPs shared digs, Dennis Skinner and John Prescott being seen as the People's Party answer to that other 'odd couple', Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. One Welsh Liberal MP even lived in the regent's Palace Hotel."

Thus, Julian Critchley's view of how MPs spent their allowances in his novel "Hung Parliament".

Did Skinner and Prescott really share digs ? Who was the Welsh Liberal MP ?
Answers on a postcard...

MPs' expenses: ask the tax man

The country is awash with proposals for reforming the system of MPs' expenses and allowances (Lynn Truss, please note position of apostrophe). Here are two more. Firstly, remove certain support functions from individual expenses altogether. For example, parliament itself should employ the support staff, as happens in the European Parliament. (It would be helpful if leading members of the Liberal Democrats could refrain from cheap cracks about "the Brussels gravy train" and perhaps learn some lessons from the EP instead). Secondly, pay MPs a higher salary and let HMRC decide which expenses are allowable as wholly, necessarily and exclusively incurred in the course of work. This would put MPs on the same footing as all citizens. There would still be disputed items but the decision would lie with the taxman and the courts, not the House of Commons fees office operating special rules for MPs.

Incidentally, according to Michael Brown, former Tory MP, Margaret Thatcher is to blame as she blocked a salary increase and introduced allowances instead, thus deceiving the electorate.