Tony Blair put in an expense claim for almost £7,000 of roof repairs on his designated second home just two days before stepping down as Prime Minister, newly-published documents show.
Mr Blair, who left Downing Street on June 27, 2007, submitted an invoice on June 25 for “roof repairs” which cost £6,990. The bill was dated June 8, suggesting that Mr Blair arranged for the work to be done after he had announced the date when he would be leaving parliament.
The expense claim – which is one of more than a million documents published online today by parliament – amounts to yet another example of an MP taking the last available opportunity to exploit the system to repair or renovate their designated second home with thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money before leaving office.
Mr Blair’s claim was reduced to £4,453 by the fees office, but he was still able to claim £5,772 in the 2007-08 financial year, despite being in office for less than three months.
His expense claims for that year also included £735.81 for council tax – half of his yearly bill of £1,470, despite the fact that he was replaced as MP for Sedgefield on July 19, 2007, meaning he was an MP for just three and a half months of that year.
Other invoices submitted by Mr Blair in 2007-08 included £305.50 for shredding, £466 for cleaning and hundreds of pounds for phone bills and utilities.
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The rot runs deep.
Corruption always starts at the top and trickles down. It should come as no surprise that Blair was/is involved in this mess.
The funny part is Brown is taking the lumps for this… Maybe he shouldn’t have pushed Blair under the bus when he did?