Another champagne socialist: Sally Morgan claimed £40,000 for London home.

Oink oink oink! Another little piggy gets stuck into our money. Sally Morgan, the former aide to Tony Blair, claimed £40,000 in expenses for her £1.1m London house by telling Parliament that her weekend country retreat was her main home.

Baroness Morgan of Huyton tells officials she stays at the house in Wandsworth, south-west London, “for the purpose of attending sittings of the House”.

The Labour peer, who is paid £135,000 a year for jobs outside politics, says her “main home” is an £845,000 cottage in Petersfield, Hants, one hour away from central London by train.

This has enabled her to claim £38,370 since 2005 for running the semi-detached London town house, which she bought for £1.1m in September 2003.

Peers whose “main residence” is outside London can claim £174 a night to pay for a second home or hotel room in the capital, with no need for receipts.

Yet Lady Morgan has repeatedly stated in official company documents that the London property is her “usual residential address”.

She shares it with her husband, John Lyons, who works full-time in London as a barrister and also cites it as his “usual residential address”.

Lords rules state: “Members whose main residence is within Greater London cannot claim night subsistence.”

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