Comment: MPs' greed

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MPs in marginal seats spend significantly more than those in safe seats, which suggests that some of them use taxpayer-funded stationery for campaigning purposes. At the same time, the time MPs spend in Parliament gets shorter - they work just 34 weeks a year.

The details of all these expenses would not be in the public domain at all if MPs could help it. They went out of their way this year to try to keep the breakdown of their expenses from the reach of the Freedom of Information Act but were eventually shamed into greater transparency. What an unlovely spectacle of greed and self-interest it all presents.