Figure it out

You report that 38 of the 59 Scottish MPs have been ordered to pay back a total of £103,000 in wrongly claimed expenses (5 February). Our current Prime Minister's principal talents were apparently recognised in his initial appointment as chancellor of the exchequer. Gordon Brown was allegedly fantastic with numbers, was a stickler for detail and espoused his constant prudence.

Most of your readers, therefore, were probably as surprised as I was to see that Mr Brown, who is also an MP for a Fife constituency, had come out comfortably top of the Scottish MPs' league table for excessive expenses claims accounting for 12.5 per cent of the Scottish total.

His inability, contrary to his reputation as a micro-manager, to follow basic rules and grasp the low-level demands of filling in personal expenses forms perhaps gives us a clue as to why, after his ten years as chancellor, the UK finances are in total disarray.

DAVID BROWN

Victoria Road

Lundin Links, Fife