So now we know ...
What have we learnt from the material by the House of Commons about the second home expenses of 14 current and former MPs?
Apart from the details of Tony Blair's and Gordon Brown's taxpayer-funded kitchen refurbishments, we now know that the Blairs were late payers of bills, that Margaret Beckett unluckily experienced lots of plumbing problems, that Barbara Follett likes clean windows, that Peter Mandelson reads lots of newspapers, that Ming Campbell prefers other people to do his sums for him, and that John Prescott was worried about the 'adverse press coverage' over the arrangements for paying his council tax bill.
We can also see that Tony Blair took out a new mortgage in 2004 and that the former Tory MP John Wilkinson informed the Commons authorities that his main home was in the Isle of Man while claiming for his constituency home in Northwood in north west London.
All of this was approved by the Commons authorities, and it's just some of the information contained in the three boxes of photocopied documents distributed to journalists by Parliamentary officials this afternoon. When the detailed receipts and invoices are examined at greater leisure they may yield further stories.
Many MPs are now very exercised at the possibility that this kind of material will reveal their home addresses. There are three addresses which have been blanked out in the information released today. The Commons was allowed to do this only in the case of a specific security threat to the individuals involved.
The addresses blanked out are those of Gordon Brown's flat in Westminster, Margaret Beckett's constituency home in Derby, and the central London flat of Alan and Ann Keen (but their other address in Brentford is revealed).
As well as the Keens' other address, the documentation discloses home addresses at the time for Tony Blair, David Cameron, John Prescott, Mark Oaten, Sir Menzies Campbell, George Osborne, William Hague, Peter Mandelson, Barbara Follett and John Wilkinson.
It's taken three years and an extensive and costly legal battle. There are several hundred pages of financial information. For some FOI campaigners this is a test case that establishes a fundamential principle of transparency in the spending of public money; for some of the MPs on the receiving end it's a pointless intrusion into their privacy.
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