Tories to repay total of £250,000 of expenses.

Somehow - and I've never really understood how they have managed to achieve this - the Tories have been able to sell the MP's expenses scandal as a Labour party problem. But, when one looks at who is paying back what, the problem for the Tories is much more pronounced than they have led us to believe:

Senior tories are to return a further £24,800 in overpaid expenses claims, bringing the total repayments by the Shadow Cabinet to more than £70,000. Thirteen members of David Cameron's top team are to pay back more claims identified as excessive by Sir Thomas Legg's audit of MPs' allowances over the past five years.

Between them, they are meeting £24,782.18 demanded of them by Sir Thomas in his final batch of letters to MPs this week. The repayments are in addition to £15,318.16 they had already returned because of his audit. The Conservative frontbenchers have also returned at least £30,000 deemed as unacceptable by an internal party investigation. Conservative MPs have now paid back more than £250,000 in claims since the expenses scandal blew up in May.

So how have they managed to sell this as a Labour party problem?

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Tags: Labour, Tories, expenses scandal