Nadine Dorries, the Tory backbencher, will be publicly reprimanded today by David Cameron after she claimed that MPs were victims of a “McCarthy-style witch-hunt” over their expenses.
The Conservative Party is deeply embarrassed by comments that the MP for Mid-Bedfordshire made early this morning when she warned that the relentless drip-drip of leaked claims was creating such an atmosphere of terror that there was a real risk of an MP committing suicide.
Hours after Ms Dorries made the remarks, Mr Cameron ordered a public statement that would distance the Tory party from the backbencher, insisting that her comments were her own and did not represent those of the Conservative Party.
According to one Tory source, party officials have had conversations with Ms Dorries on more than one occasion to rebuke her for her “increasing tendency to make wild and eccentric statements”.
After Ms Dorries drew a comparison between the expenses scandal and the anti-communist witch-hunts of US senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, a number of other MPs hit out at the backbencher.
Stephen Pound, the Labour MP, described Ms Dorries’s comments as “facile” adding: “The idea that anybody is going to play the violin and ask people to contribute to the MPs’ relief fund has absolutely no grasp of reality whatsoever.”
Earlier today, Mr Cameron attacked Ms Dorries’ judgement insisting that: “Of course MPs are concerned about what is happening but, frankly, MPs ought to be concerned about what their constituents think and ought to be worrying about the people who put us where we are.”
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Ms Dorries said: “People are seriously beginning to crack. The last day in Parliament this week was, I would say, completely unbearable.
"I have never been in an atmosphere or environment like it, when people walk around with terror in their eyes and people are genuinely concerned, asking, 'Have you seen so and so? Are they in their office? They've not been seen for days.'
"There's a really serious concern that this has got to a point now which is almost unbearable for any human being to deal with."
Ms Dorries' comments, echoing postings on her weblog, followed an angry outburst yesterday in which one MP, forced to stand down over the size of his gardening bills, complained that his critics had merely been jealous of his "very, very large house".
"I've done nothing criminal, that's the most awful thing," said Anthony Steen, who spent £90,000 his second home, including big sums for lopping trees. "And do you know what it's all about? Jealousy."
Mr Steen was one of two MPs who confirmed their departure at the next election, the other being Ben Chapman, the Labour MP for Wirral South, who insisted that he had done nothing wrong despite allegations that he over-claimed £15,000 extra for mortgage interest.
Mr Chapman said that he had been given permission by the Commons Fees Office to maintain claims on the mortgage for his second home in London despite his decision to pay off £295,000 of it, which reduced his mortgage bill from £1,900 a month to around £400.
Another Labour MP, Ian Gibson, also offered to stand down if the voters demanded it after claims that he had sold his taxpayer-subsidised second home to his daughter at a knock-down rate. He, too, insisted that he acted within the rules.
In this morning's interview, Ms Dorries insisted that the underlying problem was not the greed of politicians but the fact that no Prime Minister in recent history had dared to award MPs a proper pay rise, preferring to use the second home allowance to make up the difference.
The proof, she said, was that until recent years newly elected MPs were advised by Commons officials that they had an absolute right to claim the full Additional Costs Allowance, which she said was a lump sum allowance not an expense account.
"In my intake in 2005 things had changed, but prior to my intake in 2005 MPs were told, they were sat down and told by people in the Fees Office: 'You haven't been awarded pay rises, an MP's salary is not commensurate with anyone else at your professional level, this pot of money has been awarded to you as an allowance, not expenses... Our job here is to help you maximise that.'"
Under interim reforms announced this week by Gordon Brown and Michael Martin, the Commons Speaker swept from office by the scandal, the Fees Office is to be abolished under a new system of external regulation.
In the meantime, MPs continue to blame it for the more fanciful expenses claims and opaque "arrangements" that have cost them their careers.
The veteran Tory Douglas Hogg, for example, was paid 1/12th of the second home allowance per month to help meet the running costs of his country manor in Lincolnshire, which exceeded the allowance.
Mr Hogg was forced to stand down by David Cameron, the party leader, after it emerged that he had "claimed" for the cost of having his moat cleaned because it was listed on the bills for his estate.
So far one minister, Shahid Malik, has been forced to step down pending inquiries into his claims.
Three Cabinet ministers - James Purnell, Geoff Hoon and Hazel Blears - have been criticised for failing to pay Capital Gains Tax on the sale of their second homes. Mr Brown yesterday gave his full backing to Mr Purnell and Mr Hoon but has called Ms Blears's claim "totally unacceptable".
Source:The times
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