Ellwood on parliamentary expenses write-off “I don’t pay bills under £100.”

This might be Tobias Ellwood. Or some other buffoon. Who knows?

Tobias Ellwood says that having a £26.50 expenses debt written off by the parliamentary standards authority (IPSA) is only fair, given how much other money he has to worry about.

“Look, poor people are used to being careful with money.” Ellwood said “But someone like me, who’s always had stacks of the stuff, scraping by on a mere £90K a year is just awful.”

Friends say £90K might seem a lot of cash but when the costs of food, transport, rent/mortgage are factored in, he’ll only have £90K left.

The minister went on “I’ve found that as an MP I have to eat and drink and of course it’s only right that the taxpayer should meet the costs”. “After all, if I was a plumber or a nurse, I might want to eat but it wouldn’t be an absolute necessity. If, as a plumber or a nurse, I then wilfully chose to do so, I’d have to pay for it out of my own pocket.”

Earlier in the year Ellwood backed IPSA’s plan to increase MPs salaries by 10% when the rest of the public sector are on a freeze of 1%. He complained he’d been left counting the pennies.“Unfortunately I only had fingers and toes to count on and couldn’t cope with getting up to 2650”.