New Labour Shadow Chancellor Made A Balls On His Expenses

Mr Balls is married to Yvette Cooper, and they were the first husband and wife team to serve at the same time in the UK cabinet.

In May 2005, when Mr Balls became the elected Member of Parliament for Normanton, Miss Cooper "flipped" her second home to the family house she shared with her husband and their three children in south London. The couple both began claiming a half share of the £1,466 monthly mortgage interest, a sum of £733 each compared with the £530 that Miss Cooper had been paying in Yorkshire.

At the time, their mortgage statements showed the monthly interest element of their mortgage at £733.

Only two years later, in May 2007, they moved again, to a larger, £655,000 property in Stoke Newington in North London which they designated as their second home. Their joint mortgage interest payments increased to just over £1,031 for each of them.

They also put the bill for the £2,000 cost of removal men & vans on their parliamentary expenses.

There was a point when, after officials had advised them that they had submitted the identical claim, for the month of July 2006, that Miss Cooper and Mr Balls, the Children's Secretary and a close ally of Gordon Brown, had their expenses docked, for mortgage interest of nearly £1,300.

Ed Balls and Miss Cooper made regular monthly claims for food, usually totalling up to £600.

MPs were entitled to claim up to £400 a month on their second-home allowance, but by each of them taking advantage of this rule, the couple were able to claim substantially more for a single household.

In total in the year 2007/08, they claimed £24,438 (2006/07 £31,974) between them in respect of their second home allowance, which is just slightly more than the £23,000 that could have been paid to an individual MP but less than the maximum for two members which would be £46,000.

In the month of June 2008, Mr Ed Balls and Miss Cooper were both referred to the parliamentary sleaze watchdog over the designation of their second home, amid suggestions that it was not in order for them to be claiming expenses in respect of their family house in London, where they lived during the week.

After an investigation, John Lyon, the Standards Commissioner, exonerated them. He said that he accepted that their motivation was not profit, as they paid full capital gains tax after their move.

However it does seem to raise more questions than answers. The majority of employees do not get their food paid for do they?

Whilst it has been accepted by the Standards Comissioner that profit was not the motive there can be no doubt what so ever that by having the benefit in owning a much larger house in an affluent area of London on which the interest element is being paid is undoubtedly a tremondus saving. To me this kind of financial advantage places them in the same league as a Tax Exile.

When this all came to light they said "After taking the advice of the Fees Office in May 2005, Yvette changed the designation of her second home to London.

As with most Politicians it is never their bad decision the blame always lies with some one else!

The details of their remuneration and expenses for the years 2004/2005 to 2007/2008 are as follows-:

Yvette Cooper - Job: Chief secretary to the Treasury - Salary: £141,866 Ed Balls Employment: Secretary of State for Children, Schools & Families Salary: £141,866 That makes a Grand total of £283,732. Seems like a nice little earner to me!

Yvette Cooper's claims for the second home were as follows:-

2004/05 £19,428 2005/06 £14,234 2006/07 £15,995 2007/08 £12,219

Mr Balls claim for a second home were as set out below:-

2004/05 Not elected 2005/06 £13,618 2006/07 £15,979 2007/08 £12,219

So the totals claimed were 2004/05 £19,428 - 2005/06 £27,852 - 2006/07 £ 31,974 - 2007/08 £ 24,438

As you can see from the above figures that Ed Miliband the Labour leader has made a choice of shadow chancellor who is a genuis in dealing with his own finances but I very much doubt if he could deal the finances of the UK as he is far too busy looking after number one!