A lesson in canvassing

London council worker Philip Hanman has the same long-distance weekly commute from Cornwall as his local MP, Andrew George. But while Mr George has a £300,000 flat in Rotherhithe subsidised by the taxpayer, Mr Hanman happily makes do with a £30 tent pitched in Epping Forest, paid for out his own pocket.

Mr Hanman says greedy MP's — including St Ives representative Mr George, who has been accused of allowing his daughter to use his London home — should follow his prudent example, with a sleeping bag and "brew kit", and wake up amid the rabbits and woodpeckers.

The cost of Mr George's home would, in fact, buy a £30 tent for every MP who claims the second home allowance ... with more than 9,000 left over.

Mr Hanman leaves his home in Penzance every Monday night and drives for eight hours to work from Tuesday to Friday at Barking and Dagenham council. He took the job because of a shortage of work in Cornwall. During the summer months he lives on an Epping Forest campsite.

He said: "I recommend it to the MPs if they want to come and join me at the forest. My local MP Andrew George has a £300,000 second home in Rotherhithe. I have a £30 tent from Lidl."

He added: "I would very much like him to come out to Epping and share the bliss of the forest and see what life is like outside the sheltered environment of the Palace of Westminster, just to see how ordinary people who have to work a long way from home have to live."

Mr Hanman, whose wife Giuliana is a languages teacher in Penzance, took the job four years ago. The couple have two young children. He said: "I was offered a job in east London and I thought, that's fine, I'll take it for a while and look for another job. But it turned out to be such a good job with such a good employer that I stayed.

"My employer has been very good to me and allowed me to work four long days each week which at least gives me a long weekend back home in Penzance. Obviously my family would prefer me to work in Cornwall.

"Cornwall is a lovely place and I wouldn't want to live anywhere else but there just isn't the work down there."

His campsite costs him just £7 a night. He said: "It has great facilities, right in the middle of the forest, surrounded by trees, rabbits, squirrels and a woodpecker or two. The problem is if there is really bad weather and you spend the night in mud and the next day you have got to get up and put on a suit and go to work. But you learn to work around it."