It’s pouring drought, but some MPs have escaped the miserable weather. Graham Brady, Tory MP for Altrincham and chair of the powerful 1922 backbench committee, spent a week in the Caymans in April. The trip to these sunny Caribbean isles cost £8,600, but it was all free for Brady, according to his latest entry on the register of members’ interests. In return for very vague sounding duties, “to attend a great number of events and meetings and participate in a very wide ranging number of topics with the government and other interested parties”, the Cayman Islands government paid for the lot. No surprise, perhaps, that a fairly rightwing Tory like Brady should be happy fact-finding on the Caymans, which are very heavily involved in the offshore tax business. But worry not. Brady was not alone: Ayrshire Labour MP Brian Donohoe was there to keep him company.

Hugh Muir is the Guardian’s diary editor. He has also written extensively about race, social policy, policing and London government.