Last October the Standards & Ethics Committee made him issue an embarrassing public apology for doing this.
So when a local magazine recently held a competition for poems about "forgetful people" the muse seized me and I sent this one in (it helps if you know the geography of Herefordshire):
The ballad of Bill Wiggin
“East, West, home is best,
But I’ve got a home in the East AND West.
Which is my main home, which is my second?
One must be precise when expenses are reckoned!
My main home’s in Fulham, that hamlet so dear
That nestles in sleepy old Herefordshire.
Outside stands my land rover just where I park it:
It’s handy for Hammersmith livestock market.
The view from my window so green, so bucolic,
In a stream local folk call the Thames, otters frolic.
Oh give me the country! The hunting! The shooting!
The buzzards that wheel o’er the forests of Tooting!
My second home? Well, that’s in London you see
In the rough part of Colwall, SW3.
You can hear sirens scream as by night the Old Bill
Round up the armed drugs gangs of Midsummer Hill.
The youth – almost feral – steal, burgle and mug
On estates like Holm Lacy and Moreton-on-Lugg,
Or Monkland now riven by knife-wielding factions.
But balancing that are the world class attractions:
The Lugwardine Dungeon, the Ledbury Eye,
The Great Tower Bridge that sweeps o’er The Wye!
You can watch the Bulls play at the Emirates Stadium
Or take in a show at the Leominster Palladium.
And I’ve seen Boris Johnson – I swear I’m not fibbin’ -
Hail a black cab on the Rotherwas Ribbon.
So my main home’s the country, the other’s the City
Just as I explained to The Standards Committee.
What’s that? They’ve just ruled that the whole thing’s a mess?
I’ve consistently claimed for a bogus address?
But what if they find that my main home’s in London –
I’ll have to repay all that lovely state funding!
I didn’t intend it, ‘twas merely a gaffe;
Who’s that on the phone?”
“It’s The Telegraph”.
