It may only be pennies, but it’s our money!

HERE is a list of things which cost 45p. A packet of Swizzles Drumstick sweets. A tin of Tesco’s Cream of Tomato soup. Hanzala Malik’s dignity. The revelation that the Labour MSP claimed 45p on expenses a whopping 90 times last year for a commute of one mile is astonishing. Not least because he is far from the only offender.

Another Labour , Paul Martin, made 85 claims of under £1, most of them for 45p. Perhaps he’s nursing an addiction to Tesco’s Cream of Tomato and wanted to share it with the taxpayer. After all, every little helps.

Then there’s the SNP’s Angela Constance, Scotland’s Education Secretary, who made nine claims of less than £1 for one or two-mile journeys in and around her Almond Valley constituency.

Former Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill submitted 19 claims of less than £1. SNP treasurer Colin Beattie, a former international banker, claimed back £1 from taxpayers for a bowl from Bargain Buys. Labour’s Claudia Beamish submitted 12 claims of 60p for cycling – yes, cycling – the three miles between her Edinburgh home and Holyrood.

You can imagine how these politicians justify such claims to themselves. ‘It’s just a few pence,’ they’ll say. ‘It’s a tiny amount. Who’s going to notice?’

What these passengers on the gravy train’s cheap seats fail to realise is that it is precisely because these amounts are so small that they are so offensive.

They speak of a tawdry, penny-pinching mentality, of a raft of public servants determined to bleed the taxpayers dry using every last privilege at their disposal. Take care of the pennies it seems, and the MSPs will take care of themselves. After years of expenses scandals, and the public outrage that went with them, is it too much to expect that our politicians might have learned their lesson by now? The answer, it would seem, is yes. Instead, they go blundering along, claiming £1 here, 45p there, and thinking it doesn’t matter. Unfortunately, it does.

The vast majority of Scotland’s workforce does not have the option of claiming commuting expenses. We pay out of our own pockets, we budget for them, and we put money aside each month to balance the books. Our jobs do not subsidise the purchase of bowls – even £1 bowls from Bargain Buys.

Neither do they allow us to charge, as in the case of Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead, for a top of the range 27in computer worth £1,289, and an instruction manual worth £12.99 to learn how to use it.

Mr Malik is said, even by those in his own party, to be ‘useless’, and is unlikely to return to Holyrood after next year’s election.

But some of this year’s worst offenders are seasoned politicians, a couple of them are even in the cabinet. They should – and I’ll bet my last 45p secretly do – know better.