The duck island and the moat were Tory claims, and so Tory embarrassments. But the latest classic in the genre – the bell tower – is Labour's. Or is it?
With a general election coming, each and every gem among the latest list of expenses fiddles is being judged in Westminster according to which party it is reckoned to damage most.
Labour was longing for the latest load of receipts to unveil more toffs claiming for their estates and country piles, so new tales of the privileged ripping off the rest of us would play into its class war narrative of the moment.
But, instead, it was Labour minister Quentin Davies who today – hilariously (I should say disgracefully) – was revealed as having put in a £20,700 bill for repairs to the roof and bell tower on his constituency home last year, though he says he never intended the whole bill to be footed by the taxpayer.
Tory or Labour? In this particular case it is not quite so easy to judge.
Yes Davies is now Labour. But until he defected in 2007 he was a Tory and, although very pro-European, very much a knight of the shire type Conservative.
To the public I reckon this will seem like yet another well-off old-school type MP making hay.
Because Davies looks and sounds like a Tory I wonder if it will hurt Labour at all.
Davies's claim is ludicrous nonetheless. I can't believe Gordon Brown (although himself blushing a little from revelations that he paid back £500 for the cost of painting his summerhouse) will be best pleased to have a man who believes it right that the public should contribute to his bell tower in his government.
But he may not want to do much about it for fear of drawing attention to the fact that Davies is one of his and not one of Cameron's.
