Could the Mirror’s splash damage the Tories?

Thanks to one or two contributors on the overnight thread for picking up this – the main story in the Mirror .

For after a day which saw Gordon Brown at his most confident for months the paper’s exclusive, presumably from publicly available material, is that amongst the receipts in Cameron’s claims were those for four or five chocolate bars. These were under Cameron’s claims for his administrative and office allowance

As the paper points out MPs are allowed to claim for “meals and subsistence for interns, volunteers or permanent employees working away from their main place of employment”. The Caramel bar was bought for 40p on May 19 this year in a Commons café called The Debate while the the 40p Mint Aero was receipted on Cameron’s claim along with “Beef £3.80”.

Another claim was for a 40p packet of Maltesers along with “Veg £1.70, French Fries 50p and Vegetables 45p.”

Is this a taster of what it’s going to be like for the next five months? I would have thought that the paper would have gone for Brown’s Eton jibe – which at least has a hard political edge.

Last month it was reported that the Mirror has ” shed 8.7% of its circulation year on year, leaving its total at just under 1.3 million”. In its heyday it was touching 4 million copies a day.

Mike Smithson