Mark Hoban MP: An Appreciation

Hoban: good with rules.

Tory MP Mark Hoban, recently culled as employment minister, leads a life of interesting double standards.

Earlier this year, former chartered accountant Hoban was allowed to keep nearly all the six-figure profit he made on selling his taxpayer-funded second home. The sum is one of the biggest made by any Government minister from sales of second homes part-funded through the MPs' expenses system.

MPs were banned from using Commons expenses to pay mortgage interest in May 2010, after public fury over “flipping” allowances and other abuses.  However, transitional arrangements allowed them to keep claiming the money up to August 2012. 

Mr Hoban made £144,000 profit on the sale of his Pimlico flat, while household claims included £100.00 for a shower rack, £79.00 for four silk cushion covers and £35.00 for a toilet roll holder.

But where others are concerned, Hoban is rather less extravagant.

Unemployed people, says the ex-minister, have taken benefits as a way of life; they must “roll up their sleeves” and “stop playing the system.”  Those who don’t “play by the rules” will lose their benefits.  It seems Mr Hoban has an impressive understanding of rules, and how they can best be interpreted.  

Just so we’re clear.