This is a new expenses 'scandal' I hadn't noticed.
Ed Balls bought, at tax payers' expenses, 'Reasons to be Cheerful' by Trotskyist firebrand Mark Steel. Oh joy! I've just finished re-reading this excellent book so I'm glad my choice of reading matter is endorsed by a government Minister.
He also bought a book called “The Rebels: How Blair mislaid his constituency” - I must look it up.
Balls explains the purchase thus; "In March 2006, the House of Commons office manager purchased two political books as a leaving gift for a university politics student who had been doing unpaid voluntary work in our House of Commons office."
I wish the intern had read the book before their stint with Balls rather than after, but you can't have everything.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Ed Balls - Reasons to be cheerful
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3 comments:
Excellent book. It seems to pass through funny hands. Jeremy Beadle, of course, gave it to Bob Monkhouse as a present.
I would have imagined buying books about politics to be beyond question an acceptable use of MPs expenses -- surely we want them to be absorbing as wide a range of opinions as possible.
I quite agree Dan. It's an office expense and I have no problem with it - I just think it's his choice of political literature that's a bit of fun
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