Why Brown was missing when MPs voted to keep expenses

Gordon Brown's failure to show up for yesterday's 'snouts in the trough' vote on MPs' expenses has led to conspiracy theories running around Westminster that there was an unofficial pact on pay and allowances.

Labour MPs are privately claiming that Brown let it be known that they could vote how they liked on expenses, including keeping the notorious 'John Lewis list' of allowances for things such as fridges, flat-screen TVs and carpets for their second homes, providing they toed the Government line on pay by voting for pay restraint.

That would explain why 33 ministers - including Brown's own bag carriers, his Parliamentary private secretaries, Ian Austin and Angela Smith - voted against a higher pay rise but for higher expenses. It led to the altercation in the lobby between Austin and George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, in which Austin is said to have told the Tory: "Fuck off, you toff."

Brown's aides are now saying that the PM did not vote at all because he knew he would lose. Rather than pull him out of meetings, it was decided that he would not vote. Which begs the question, how did he know the official motion on expenses and allowances tabled by Harriet Harman as Leader of the Commons would be defeated? The answer: the whips.

So that means the whips were reporting back to Number Ten that Harman would be defeated. How could they know? Could it be because they had given the green light to the ministers to vote in favour of keeping their allowances.

Brown, meanwhile, was allowed to carry on with his ministerial meetings in the bunker, before flying to Japan for the G8 this weekend. He has delayed next week's Cabinet until Thursday.

The Guardian carries a headline today saying: 'Back in the bunker - Hitler returns to Berlin, worried, downtrodden, under guard - and made of wax'. It sounded worryingly familiar to Brown's allies.

THE MOLE: EXPENSES VOTE

FIRST POSTED JULY 4, 2008