Five-star trip to Tunis plunges Corbyn into more controversy
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is under fire again today after it was revealed that a five-star trip he took to Tunisia in 2014 was paid for by the Tunisian government.
Corbyn did not declare that his flights, meals and accommodation at the five-star Hotel Le Palace in Tunis were paid for by the Tunisian government in the register of MPs’ financial interests.
He claims there was no need to do so as the cost of the trip came under the £660 threshold.
However, critics of Corbyn said that the trip must have cost more than £660 as it included two nights at the five-star hotel, which overlooks the Gulf of Tunis.
An investigation by the London Evening Standard found that two-night package to Le Palace hotel would cost at least £687 if he had been taken cheap flights that required two changes of aircraft and took 17 hours.
Critics have pointed out the prices of packages to Tunisia were more expensive in 2014, before a terror attack on a beach in Sousse caused a tourism boycott of the destination from which it is only just beginning to recover.
Asked why he did not declare hospitality paid for by the Tunisian Government, Corbyn said: "I didn’t declare it because it was under the required level to be declared but I made the trip absolutely public.
"I made public the fact I was proud to go there in order to promote a Palestinian peace process and indeed it was an all party parliamentary delegation that attended, there were liberal democrat and conservative Parliamentarians there as well and many people from other parts of Europe."
Conservative deputy chairman James Cleverly said it seemed ‘inconceivable that a multi-day trip like this could come in below the declaration threshold’.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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