At last - Tory fakecharities!

From yesterday's Times:

Conservative MPs have paid £2.3 million from Commons allowances to a research company that opponents claim gives party political advice...

MPs are strictly forbidden from using Commons allowances to claim anything that relates to party political activity or might provide a benefit to a party political organisation. However, The Times has seen briefing papers produced by the PRU that outline Tory policies and the party’s opposition to government policies.

The Times has also discovered that Conservative MPs have spent tens of thousands of pounds of their allowances on other organisations with close Tory links. The Shadow Cabinet alone has claimed payments of more than £85,000 to Parliamentary Liaison Services, whose director, Mark Fullbrook, is a Tory councillor married to a prospective candidate for the party.

It also emerged that MP Services, which receives thousands of pounds in Commons allowances from Conservative MPs to write annual reports, is based at Conservative Party headquarters...

Iain Corby, its director, said that the PRU was not a political organisation and its services existed only to enable MPs to carry out their parliamentary duties. The organisation saved money as the PRU pooled the jobs of researchers, responding to constituents’ letters and providing research for debates in the Commons, he added. But John Mann, the Labour MP, said it was “directly and totally party political” and “should be recognised as such”. He claimed that he tried to join the PRU but received a letter of rejection because of his political allegiance.

A Conservative Party spokesman said that the PRU was a shared service that did not form party political views.