Brown's golden cabinet couple have been exposed as triple flippers buried in the latest revelations from the Telegraph, as a shamed justice minister is forced to quit and New Labour sinks to an all time low in the polls.
Husband and wife cabinet ministers, Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper 'flipped' homes three times designating their second home to three different properties within the space of two years, according to the Telegraph.
At one point, the couple had their expenses docked, after each submitted two monthly claims for mortgage interest of nearly £1,300. And officials also warned them that they had submitted the same claim, for the month of July 2006, twice.
Brown's cabinet darlings were let off the hook over their use of MPs' homes expenses in October when parliament's sleaze watchdog investigated the married ministers, after it was claimed they had been able to "maximise" their taxpayer-funded second homes allowances, by claiming their London home was their main home.
The couple then faced a complaint that they may have broken the spirit or the letter of the rules on commons' housing allowance, following a newspaper report accusing the couple of exploiting the rules to buy an expensive home and get their children into a "top state school".
Today's revelations put the couple, who are among Brown's closest allies, back in the firing line and are a further blow for bunkered Brown and his "smearing" side-kick Balls, as global financial wire-service Bloomberg reveals to the world Brown's dismal leadership and shows Cameron winning hands down.
Trust in parliament is shattered. The Supreme Leader should live up to his moniker. Get a grip and show some leadership man. Pen a line to his trusted lieutenants. No puns, no adjectival reporting, a simple 'Dear Ed and Yvette', as above, will suffice. Then have the guts to call a general election.
Fiddling expenses and cheap accounting tricks are not what you'd expect from senior members of the government, particularly ones who worked, still work and have aspirations to work again in the Treasury of all places.
Meanwhile shamed justice minister Shahid Malik who spent the morning ranting on TV with the tired old mantra about doing nothing wrong was finally forced to quit as justice minister pending an inquiry, as more heads roll in the MPs expenses racket. Ducking and diving, he refused point blank to pay back any of his ill-gotten gains.
Malik was revealed by the Telegraph to be running up the highest second homes expenses claim of any MP amounting to £66,827 over three years and renting his main home from a "convicted slum landlord", something he described as a "fabrication".
In what is turning out to be another bad hair day for Billy-no-mates Brown and his greedy bunch of chancers, the Sun revealed they'd sunk to new depths in the polls and the relentless round of scandalous MPs' expenses revelations is leaving the Orange Party searching for the green shoots of a snap election.
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