A small news article about Gordon Brown that seems to have passed pretty much unnoticed

The Telegraph reports that:

'Gordon Brown has spent nearly £20,000 of his parliamentary expenses on flying between London and Edinburgh, despite rarely appearing in the House of Commons.

Rules allow MPs to claim for the cost of travelling between London and their constituency homes if they are on parliamentary business. However the former prime minister has only spoken in the Commons on three occasions since May 2010. Mr Brown has also participated in only 15 per cent of parliamentary votes since the 2010 election, according to an analysis by the politics website publicwhip.co.uk.

In all, he has claimed £19,237 in parliamentary expenses on air travel between London and Edinburgh between June 29 2010 and Jan 23, 2012.

Priti Patel, the Conservative MP for Witham, Essex, said: “It’s shocking that Gordon Brown is claiming thousands for travel, but rarely turns up to speak or even vote on his constituents’ behalf in the Commons.”

A spokesman for Mr Brown’s office said it was “obvious” that when Mr Brown travelled between London and Scotland “he has expenses for travel by aeroplane or train which have to be — and are — fully accounted for”.'

So MPs 'claim for the cost of travelling between London and their constituency homes if they are on parliamentary business'. Was Gordon Brown on parliamentary business? Note that Gordon Brown's spokesman doesn't actually confirm/claim that - “he has expenses for travel by aeroplane or train which have to be — and are — fully accounted for”.

I have no doubt that Gordon Brown or his staff have the receipts for his air travel to and from London but that does not mean that the flights were to enable Gordon Brown to undertake parliamentary business.

Maybe Gordon Brown or one of his spokesman could identify the parliamentary business that Gordon Brown was undertaking on his trips to London, he wasn't appearing in the House of Commons chamber.