Paying For George Osborne’s House?

I was disturbed to see the reports of Tory Shadow Chancellor’s latest encounter with the Parliamentary expenses watchdog.  George Osborne has been found to have claimed too much-£1,936-in mortgage expenses for his £450,000 Cheshire farmhouse in his Tatton constituency. George was happy the breaches were found to be “Not Major”.

Well I am sorry but in my opinion that is not good enough. For a politician aiming to be the next Chancellor of the Exchequer one would expect him to ensure his record on expenses was beyond reproach. Yet as soon as these concerns were raised instead of finding where he had gone wrong and paying up, the Standards Commissioner had to plod through an investigation at taxpayers expense.

Yet if you look at the detail it gets worse. Mr George Osborne’ error was to claim for interest payments for an increased mortgage, to cover £10,000 for repairs to the Cheshire house and £25,000 for costs related to the original purchase.

George Osborne’s personal wealth is estimated to be £4.3m. He stands to inherit the Osborne baronetcy of Ballentaylor in County Tipperary, Ireland, as well as a substantial share of Osborne & Little, his father’s luxury wall­paper company.

Did he really need to claim the interest on these sums with personal resources like that? This isn’t class envy on my part, it is the clear unfairness of this behaviour. Is it fair to expect taxpayers, many on modest incomes to support such claims?

Perhaps the local Tories would care to comment-after all they selected Derek Conway-the father of the current expenses scandal.