Why did Smith spurn chance of free home?

Given the fix she's in regarding her second home allowance and the revelation of her husband's taste for blue movies, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith must be rueing the day she turned down the opportunity of a grace and favour government home in the West End of London.

If she had taken up the offer, she would never have had to slum it with her sister in south London - the house we now all know she declares as her 'first home' - nor have to file all those receipts to get back her expenses on her family home in Redditch - the one she declares as her 'second home'.

The house available to the Home Secretary when she first got the job in June 2007 is a six-bedroom pile in South Eaton Place now valued at a mere £4m since the credit crunch.

As well as being a convenient chauffeur-driven car ride from her office, it would have been a lot easier for the Special Branch to guard than her sister's home in a south London terrace - a factor she might have considered given that security is part of her remit.

The Tory Home Secretary Michael Howard used to have the house, and David Blunkett used it as until he resigned in December 2004 (it's where he famously entertained his lover, Kimberly Fortier). At which point it became empty because neither Charles Clarke, nor John Reid nor Smith chose to take it up. Possibly they realised that the average life of a Home Secretary in the Labour government is hardly long enough to merit moving one's possessions in and out.