Gordon Brown denied claims that he dodges Prime Minister's Question Time by hiding in the loft with his model railway
Prime Minister Gordon Brown was today forced to publicly defend himself against accusations that he wasted £270,000 of taxpayer’s money on building an enormous model railway in the loft of his official Downing Street residence. The Telegraph reported that, over the past six months, Brown has constructed a vast Double-0 Gauge miniature railway featuring finely detailed scale models of major European landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, the Colleseum, and St Peter’s Basilica.
The model’s centrepiece is a fully functioning replica of Paris Gare du Nord station, which houses a total of 16 working miniature steam trains that the Prime Minister likes to spend hours watching as they weave through a sophisticated network of tracks over 50 meters in length.
Speaking on Today’s Andrew Marr show on the BBC, Brown said “I have not broken any of the rules governing MP’s expenses, and I want to reassure the public that all of this money has been spent prudently. Clearly, when I needed to install an extra 10 meters of track for the trains to loop around my new model of the Sagrada Família cathedral, it was necessary to hire contractors to knock through the wall between my loft and that of number 11. It was a load-bearing wall, and we’re talking about historic, listed buildings here. That kind of work doesn’t come cheap.”
The Prime Minister, who broke with tradition to appear on the popular current affairs programme dressed in an authentic late 19th century Parisian station-master’s uniform, strongly denied claims that he is becoming increasingly distracted from his ministerial duties in favour of spending an unreasonable amount of time playing with his model trains in the loft.
“Je m’appele Chef de Gare Brun! Regarde mon train qu’il est beau! Choooo-chooooo! I hope that will be an end to the matter.” said Brown.