This is a great new service but the return journey time is far too early. Who only spends 2 hours at Lakeside? It should leave around 3pm to make it viable.

Mr Pickles of course will probably never be seen on a bus himself. He claimed £2,739 for MPs' travel expenses in 2006/07, all of which bar £80 was spent on traveling by car.

He did run up a bill for £13,118 in Incidental Expenses Provision which the taxpayers footed, topping that off with a £16,197 claim for an Additional Costs Allowance.

These claims on top of his salary out of our taxes do not include the £91,962 he claimed for staff expenses from the public, even though he was also being provided with 'donations' from businessmen, Mr Stephen Brook, Mr Richard Harrington, and Mr Stephen Massey, to pay for research staff.

His spending on stationary came to £560 and £1,963 for postage costs. His claim for computer equipment was £957, a reasonable sum if one ignores the fact he also claimed £1,991 for computer equipment every year from 2001-2005.

Just how 'viable and sustainable' Mr Pickles is as an MP is up to the voters to judge at the next election. They should be mindful that when given the opportunity to reform the expenses system for MPs and prevent further rip-offs by greedy politicians, he has not attended the House of Commons to vote. In fact generally, he has only attended 56% of debates in the House of Commons, well below the average for MPs. He did find time in his less than busy schedule to go to Wimbledon on 5 July 2008 at the expense of Provident Financial, a firm whose agents go door-to-door to give loans to people with poor credit ratings and which charges high rates of interest.

And what, Technomist, are the comparable figures for Neil Gerrard and Harry Cohen?

Neil Gerrard voted in 74% of votes in Parliament. He spent only £1,154 on travel. He claimed a London Supplement of £2,712 and £14,567 for Incidental Expenses Provision but nothing at all of the Additional Costs Allowance. His staffing costs, not topped up by private businessmen as far as can be told from the members' Register of interests, came to £85,847. Stationary cost £553 and postage £1,122.

His claim for a computer came to a more pricey £1,031, but he claimed only £1,576 for the years 2001-5.

His total costs amounted to £106,986. For 22-25 October 2007 he accepted the cost of hotel accommodation in Moscow for attendance at a conference, paid for by Transatlantic Partners Against AIDS. On 3 Jul 2008 he voted in agreement with attempts to reform MPs expenses. He is rated as voting 'strongly' for transparency of Parliament' by the website 'The Public Whip', with a 91.7% score.

Harry Cohen, in contrast, voted 'very strongly against a transparent Parliament', with a score of 3.1% on 'The Public Whip'. Has voted in 77% of votes in parliament, marginally more often than Mr Gerrard (who, I believe, was ill during some of the period being measured) and rated as above average for MPs.

Mr Cohen spent £88,677 on staff costs, and then also claimed £22,110 for an Additional Costs Allowance as well as £19,039 in Incidental Expenses. His members' travel claim was entirely for travel by car, and came to £3,247. He spent less on stationary than Mr Gerrard, (£519) but the postage costs claimed for handling this came to more, at £1,897. Overall, Mr Cohne cost the taxpayer £136,679. That amounts to 127% of the costs that Mr Gerrard asked from the taxpayers for doing pretty much the same job.

His computer costs were £1,125 in 2006/7, while he claimed £1,380 for computer equipment in 2001/2, and £1,736 for each year from 2002/5

From 29 September-6 October 2007, Mr Cohen traveled to Dharamsala, India, to meet with the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile, their Government and the Dalai Lama, paid for by the Tibet Society, (Registered Charity No: 1061834).

It's great to once again have a service to Romford and Lakeside, but will people be prepared to spend more time getting to and from Lakeside than actually being there? I doubt it - I shan't, for one! I'd also be interested in the return fare; another service to Lakeside, soon to start up on Saturday, will cost £10 return, so I certainly won't use that.

Whether I use the bus service or not depends on whether they listen to passengers and return from Lakeside later than scheduled, and whether the return fare is a reasonable price. Otherwise, yet another bus service will disappear almost as soon as it arrives.