Mar 19, 2008
The envelopes die in vain
Amid all the hoo-ha about British MPs expenses - fridges, sofas, and food allowances - what about the electoral advantage of being able to spend over a 100 grand a year digging into your constituency? Yet as Ron Johnston and Charles Pattie show in this paper, there appears to be no relationship at all between parliamentary expenditure by Labour or Liberal Democrat MPs and their electoral performance. There is, though, a benefit for Conservative MPs. All those Labour MPs thinking that their communication allowance might save them next time, might need to think again.