Sunday, March 29, 2009

Labour MP Harry Cohen claims a caravan on Mersea Island is his main residence

According to the Mail on Sunday:

Cohen has claimed every single penny of the maximum £104,701 in Commons expenses in the past five years for his £375,000 property in his Leyton and Wanstead constituency in East London, on the basis that it is his 'second home'.

Astonishingly, he says he has claimed the full second-home allowance since 1990.

It means he has pocketed a staggering £310,714 in total - believed to be the largest amount ever claimed by any MP.

Yet he declares on his Labour website that he and wife Ellen 'live' in Leyton and 'spend weekends at their static caravan' on Mersea Island, an unspoilt stretch of the East Anglian coast.

If his real main residence is the Leyton house, it means his Commons allowance has funded a holiday home completely unconnected with either his parliamentary or constituency duties.

More on Mersea Island here. And Musings from a Muddy Island is a good blog, though it has no connection with Harry Cohen.

2 comments:

dreamingspire said...

Jane Griffiths (janestheones.blogspot,com) keeps on and on writing about Martin Salter's expense claims before the 2002 watershed. March 24th: "in fact it is well known in Westminster and elsewhere (like here: I am a witness and saw him fill in the forms and heard him brag about the money he was raking in to pay for his fishing holidays) that he claimed at least 40K for a non-existent London property from 1997 until disclosure to the House authorities became compulsory in 2002"

Anonymous said...

Perhaps Ms Griffiths should use a mirror in future. Her track record as an employee was a litter of lies and subterfuges. Once she told her colleagues she was on a course at Bush House and when there was someone seeking her urgently by phone we found the course was pure fiction. Her ability to alienate people was legendary.