Metropolitan Police Federation

Within the rules but out of order

We should not be surprised that Tony McNulty (who was the policing minister during the recent police pay dispute) has been exposed over expense claims which ordinary folk would regard, at best, as dodgy.

McNulty insists his claims were "within the rules". Well, a rule that states an MP can claim an allowance for his parents' home - where he does not sleep and which is just a bus fare from his own domicile - is clearly wrong and someone of McNulty's status must surely realise that to take advantage of it is simply indefensible.

McNulty reckons he does some constituency work from his parents' home. How reassuring to know he is so industrious that his Parliamentary office, his office in the Home Office and his constituency office are insufficient to allow him to shoulder all of his workload.

He follows his erstwhile leader, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, into the row over MPs' expenses. She claimed a small fortune for sleeping a couple of nights a week at her sisters' gaff when a suite at the Ritz would have been cheaper.

Of course, these two characters are already known to the police for taking liberties with the rules.

They are the pair who, in 2007, tore up the rules and arbitrarily ignored their obligations under an agreed formula of 30 years' standing for deciding police pay (while insisting that the police continue to honour their obligations - one rule for cops, one rule for ministers).

They said the country couldn't afford to pay the police what, under the rules, they were entitled to.

On the other hand, of course, they apparently believe the nation can easily afford the tens of thousands of pounds which they have banked in housing benefit (sorry, allowances). All properly claimed under the rules, naturally.

Metropolitan Police officers will join the rest of the taxpaying public in ruling that Smith and McNulty's financial shenanigans are completely out of order.