Nigel Mills was probably tired and trying not to fall asleep when he decided to have a game of Candy Crush Saga, as so many do. Unfortunately, the British MP did so at work—during a meeting of the Works and Pensions Committee, of which he is a member, in the House of Commons—and was caught doing so by The Sun (paywall).
What’s worse, the iPad he played it on is taxpayer-funded.
Mills was pretty unapologetic. “I shouldn’t do it but if you check the meeting I would say I was fully engaged in asking questions that I thought were particularly important in how we get the pensions issue right,” he told the tabloid. “I shall try not to do it in the future,” he grudgingly added.
Though perhaps someone in the Conservative Party had a word with him, as he later said:
It’s not the worst incident of its kind. A member of parliament in Italy was caught browsing for prostitutes, while some of his peers in Indonesia and Croatia decided to go ahead and watch porn in the chamber. But Mills’ friends in the House of Commons seem to be more worried about the picture than his conduct: they’re conducting an investigation into who took the photos.
Perhaps Mills deserves a break. Sir Edward Leigh, who served as the head of the powerful Public Accounts Committee between 2001 and 2010, described his own experience to the BBC in candid terms: “My God it was boring. I just about managed not to go to sleep.”
He added: ”If Nigel has to keep himself awake by playing computer games good on him.”