A LONDON MP today lifted the lid on a Commons game where politicians slip bizarre phrases into their speeches for bets.

Stephen Pound admitted the pastime - dubbed "Hansard Bingo" - was rife at Westminster where MPs competed to get the strangest words into the official record. He said his own feat was to get "sesquipedalian" - which means being prone to very long words - into an exchange on the floor. He also managed to work the name of former Fulham midfielder Jimmy Bullard into a speech after being challenged by Battersea Labour MP Martin Linton. Hansard, the official record of Commons speeches, records Mr Pound saying last May: "I have mentioned former local government planning officers, who seem to work as consultants nowadays. Many of them will be as busy as Jimmy Bullard."

Challenged about rumours of the game's existence on BBC TV, Mr Pound said: "How did you know about that?" After coming clean about his own involvement, he claimed that Regents Park & Kensington North MP Karen Buck had once slipped a line of dialogue from cult film The Blues Brothers into a committee session. The line was: "It's dark and we're wearing sunglasses - hit it!" Ms Buck denied playing, but admitted she once lost a charity bet with a Tory that he could not insert into a speech lyrics of the Max Bygraves song Gilly Gilly By The Sea.

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