Well, at least he turns up....occasionally.

The figures for MP’s expenses were released last week and a big hand please for Nigel Dodds, MP for N.Belfast and Northern Ireland’s dearest MP.

Nigel backpocketed 151,412 GBP in the last parliamentary session; that breaks down mainly as 22,110 "cost of stay", 20762 "office expenses", 83203 "staff expenses"*, with the rest being used up on paper-clips, pencil sharpeners and other miscellaneous expenses.

So what has Nigel delivered for the cash?

Not a great deal, he had a
A 44.6% attendance record ("well below average")

And spoke in 19 debates in the last year — which is "only" "below average" amongst MPs.

Not that impressive a record, but a slightly better one than Alex Salmond's; he was Number 9 in the overall expenses list, pulling in 166,814 GBP a year whilst simulataneously delivering a 23.6% attendance record.

And a lot better than 5 certain other N.Irish MPs, namely,McGuinness, Murphy, Adams, Gildernew and Doherty who pulled in a grand total of almost 680,000 quid between them whilst delivering a collective attendance record of...0 (zero, zilch, nada,nul,nil)%.
That old Brit oppression, it just keeps getting worse and worse.



(I've just seen this was covered in Slugger about a century ago, but sod it, I've spent too long on the links to delete it now.)