MP repays £755 expense claim for astrology software

In June of last year I wrote about one of the more entertaining expense claims that had come to light at Westiminster. David Tredinnick, the Tory MP for Bosworth in Leicestershire, had claimed for astrology software bought from a company called Crucial Astro Tools and for tuition from the same company to show him how to use it.

News comes today, courtesy of the Leicester Mercury, that he has repayed the £755 he received for these claims. Though Tredinnick still defends this use of public money:

"There are, in my view, links between astrology and healthcare and this is held to be the case in India and other healthcare systems and that was what I was looking into."

he told the Mercury:

"I thought, however, that to avoid any doubt about this claim that I would repay the money."

Strange, you think he would have foreseen that this claim would cause him problems.

I later had fun with this story and some of Tredinnick's other wacky beliefs in a House Points column.

Writing on his blog Adventures in Nonsense, Simon Perry does not take the member for Bosworth so lightly:

I find it unbelievable that a democratically-elected MP seems to be suggesting we should be looking into using astrology within our system of health care ...

Radionics is a system of healing where you take a sample of hair or blood, or even a signature and use it in what I can only describe as a kind of remote psychic healing machine.

It's the friendly but equally wacky equivalent of sticking pins into a voodoo doll. Yet it seems Mr Tredinnick is suggesting we should consider it within the NHS.

Though it does not say so on the blog, I think this piece was originally one of Simon's columns for the Leicester Mercury. Clearly, he fancies himself as the Ben Goldacre of the East Midlands.