Why were Tony Blair's expenses shredded?

There has still been no explanation forthcoming as to why, amid all the other expenses details to have emerged from the Commons, only one named MP’s expenses seem to have been shredded.

It has been reported that other MPs’ expenses were also shredded. But I can only find the name of one MP to whom this has happened: Tony Blair. The missing expenses centre on a sum of £43,029 claimed over three years.

So we are forced to extrapolate from what we DO know of at least some of Mr Blair’s claims over the years. Surviving documentation reports refurbishment to his kitchen of £10,600.

A dishwasher was included at £515.75. This is an expensive machine. My Indesit cost £194.00 at John Lewis. But he could have had a Zanussi at £269.00. At £515.75 his Siemens dishwasher was significantly more expensive than the respected Bosch at £341 (all prices are current and taken from the John Lewis website).

As the dishwasher and the global sum for the kitchen are now, post shredding, all we have to go on, it indicates that, like other members of parliament, Mr Blair (who stood down as an MP in 2007) went for top of the range.

The question today is whether, like other MPs, Blair benefited at the expense of the taxpayer (property profits and tax relief – there is no tax liable on any of these “allowances”).

But in Mr Blair’s case the question is more serious. Why were his expenses details shredded? What kind of investigation, if any, is under way?