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I've been thinking about the travel problem for a while, before the expenses issue came up. I work every other week in Porstmouth. I could rent a place to stay, but I can only claim for the days I'm actually there, and then I only get the tax back (ie. the cost is tax deductible for 5/14 of the time). But I digress. My rail fair is around £50. It is normally £65 return to London. The trains, particularly coming back on a Friday are always full beyond capacity, often with people standing all the way from Paddington to Exeter. We have the most expensive railways in Europe and the worst. I suspect that many MPs travel to London on the train. It always struck me that if MPs paid their fares out of their own pocket, that the over priced fares would start to come down. I expect that they all travel first class, which I'm sure is very comfy. They won't have to book ahead as the tax payer will pay whatever it costs, so they may be on tickets that cost hundreds of pounds. If you've every wondered who pays the ridiculous top rate ticket prices, the answer is "people who don't have to pay for the tickets themselves". These figures don't give a breakdown of what the travel costs are spent on. But, booking ahead, at £65 return per week, Plymouth - Paddington would be something like £3,200 per year. The figures we see here are at least 4 times that. When questioned about the sky-high prices, MPs and their friends the privatised rail companies always say that you can get really good deals if you book ahead. But clearly they don't. I can't always either. I was ill last year and had to cancel a week away at the last minute. But can I claim the cost of the unused ticket (just the tax, you understand). No. Perhaps one day MPs will follow the same rules that they apply to us, the mugs who pay their wages. D Henry Bremridge wrote: > http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/may/15/mps-expenses-houseofcommons > > As this is the DC-GLUG, thought I would have a look at the MPs in the South West. > > Columns are self explanatory: Travel + Total Basic = Total > > For what goes in the Total Basic and how the travel is determined see > the above full spreadsheet > > > > Member Party Constituency Total Total > BasicTotal Trave > > Goldsworthy Liberal Democrat Falmouth & Camborne 159,325 148135 > 11190 > Rogerson Liberal Democrat Cornwall North 150,809 138128 > 12681 > Breed Liberal Democrat Cornwall South East 138,371 126028 > 12343 > Pritchard Conservative The Wrekin 161,827 146751 > 15076 > George Liberal Democrat St Ives 170,367 153048 > 17319 > > Cox Conservative Devon West & Torridge 145,360 131894 > 13466 > Sanders Liberal Democrat Torbay 164,063 150593 > 13470 > Younger-Ross Liberal Democrat Teignbridge 157,841 144449 > 13392 > Browne Liberal Democrat Taunton 161,136 152260 > 8876 > Gilroy Labour Plymouth Sutton 140,900 133091 > 7809 > Bradshaw Labour Exeter 141,595 138143 > 3452 > Steen Conservative Totnes 160,957 149787 > 11170 > Harvey Liberal Democrat Devon North 160,492 149241 > 11251 > Seabeck Labour Plymouth Devonport 151,396 139615 > 11781 > Streeter Conservative Devon South West 153,644 140684 > 12960 > > Number Avg Tot Avg Basic Avg > Travel > Cornwall Liberal Democrat 4 154,718 141,335 > 13,383 > Conservative 1 161,827 146,751 > 15,076 > Labour > > Devon Liberal Democrat 4 160,883 149,136 > 11,747 > Conservative 3 153,320 140,788 > 12,532 > Labour 3 144,630 136,950 > 7,681 > > > > -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html