Today’s Daily Telegraph is awash with lurid details of ministers’ expense claims. Highlights include Gordon Brown’s payment of £6,577 to his brother for a jointly employed cleaner, Alistair Darling’s regular changes to his official ‘second home’ designation, and David Miliband’s spending on pot plants.

The health secretary has filed ‘far more straightforward’ expenses claims, however.

The paper says he has claimed only for his constituency home, a ‘modest’ rented London property, and sundry food and furniture claims.

Former health minister Andy Burnham, in contrast, claimed for a new flat, stamp duty and moving costs, and ‘warned the parliamentary authorities that his wife might divorce him’ if the expenses were not paid.

Meanwhile, Alan Johnson is again being touted as a possible future leader of the Labour party.

In a column published this morning, the Independent's Steve Richards argues that: ‘If Brown were to resign this summer, it is possible Alan Johnson would get the job unopposed and told to get on with it.’

jonn.elledge@haymarket.com

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