MP caught playing Candy Crush at committee meeting: I'll ‘try’ not to do it again

Nigel Mills was still ‘fully engaged’

Conservative MP Nigel Mills has been caught playing the popular and addictive mobile game Candy Crush Saga for over two-and-a-half hours while supposedly actively participating in a discussion on national pension reforms.

Images and a video were published (paywall) in The Sun of the politician playing the game on his iPad in a conference room session of the Work and Pensions Committee.

It seems that Mills was happily crushing candies over a period of two-and-a-half hours, a source told the paper, although he only admitted to “probably having a game or two”.

Despite appearing engrossed in the game, he said he was still “fully engaged”.

“It was a long meeting on pension reforms, which is an important issue that I take very seriously,” he told the paper.

“There was a bit of the meeting that I wasn’t focusing on and I probably had a game or two.”

“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 said.

The lawmaker was apologetic, but apparently he can only go so far in trying to resist the lure of the big CC, and can only promise to "try not to do it in the future".

The meeting was held last Monday and was related to pensions and the insurance industry. Mills is the MP for Amber Valley and was elected in 2010. ®