Gordon's top tips on milking the welfare state

Gordon Brown urged students to live like "parasites", cashing in on social security and scrounging food, drinks and baths in posh hotels in a booklet he compiled during his time at Edinburgh University.

In the 200-page guide, he refers to social security benefits as "free money" and advises anyone who is caught trying to con someone that "you may think you are guilty, but legal advice can show otherwise".

Mr Brown was 22 when he edited the booklet, called Alternative Edinburgh, while he was student rector in the Seventies. He advises: "Free money is available from social security, basic £5.80 a week. Social and medical benefits are your right, not charity handouts, so never be reticent about claiming them. For whatever reason the so-called welfare state was brought into being, it can and must be used to its full extent."

He includes some tips for ensuring a constant flow of free food and drink , such as turning up at a party with a carrier bag full of empty beer cans weighted with two half-bricks. Hot baths in posh hotels can be gained by sitting "in the lobby until reception is busy, then walk quickly upstairs or into the lift. Even the plushest hotels have at least one public bathroom to a floor."

A source close to Mr Brown said: "I'm not sure he would support these ideas now. But it is interesting that David Cameron at the same age was drinking champagne in the Bullingdon Club, whose members gloried in trashing restaurants."

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