It's all in the definition

Baroness Uddin will not be prosecuted as the CPS has apparently decided that expenses rules gave prosecutors a "very real difficulty" when it came to deciding whether to prosecute and that the definition of that residence in the Lords expenses scheme would always have been "critical to any possible criminal proceedings against Baroness Uddin".

So with the Clerk of Parliaments Michael Pownall announcing last November that ultimately "it is up to members to designate an address as their main residence as they see fit" and setting a threshold that peers must visit their "main home" at least once a month. It became all but impossible for the CPS to successfully prosecute Baroness Uddin.

Of course in the real world a person's "main home" would be where they lived the majority of the time, but in Labour "snouts in the trough" Britain: "it is up to members to designate an address as their main residence as they see fit".

How convenient, how cosy, how bloody ridiculous, how unlike the rules that apply to the rest of us; but we are just taxpayers not members of the Labour elite so we have no say in these matters.