A blog site called Political Scrapbook has been alleging that Brent Liberal Democrats do not pay a phone bill, and that instead it is paid through Sarah Teather's parliamentary expenses. In fact, the story seems slighter odder.
The Liberal Democrat accounts lodged with the Electoral Commission show an item "Telephone." The figures for this item each year are: £500 (2004), £673.62 (2005), £300 (2006), blank (2007), blank (2008). The accounts for 2007 and 2008 don't seem to give any explanation as to why the Liberal Democrat phone bills disappear.
Meanwhile, the Political Scrapbook graph, which I assume is collated from Parliamentary invoices, shows a quarterly bill of several hundred pounds being paid by the taxpayer from July 2004 into 2008 (The last year for which there are accounts).
Why do Sarah Teather's parliamentary duties entail a phone bill so much higher than her party's, and why did the party cease using the phone after 2006?
If you look at the Brent Liberal Democrat accounts you can find even more interesting questions, which I will cover in a later post.
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