So, Denis MacShane has stood down as an MP. It’ll be hard for anyone to find good to say about him today after it was revealed he had been effectively writing himself expense cheques.

Nineteen invoices, covering 2004 to 2008, of over £12,000 were put down as covering “research and translation” for the European Policy Institute – whereas in fact the money was being spent on “travel, subsistence, hospitality and the purchase of books” which the committee looking at MacShane’s case have noted as being “far from what would be acceptable in any walk of life”. Continue reading →