CONSERVATIVE LEADER David Cameron has forced another Tory MP into early retirement following the Daily Telegraph's disclosure that Sir Peter Viggers claimed £1,645 on parliamentary expenses for a "duck island" in the garden pond of his Hampshire home.
Mr Cameron was also forced to defend Conservative whip and Oxford contemporary Bill Wiggin after the newspaper said he had claimed £11,000 on a property that had no mortgage. Prime minister Gordon Brown was also again on the defensive as cabinet ministers Geoff Hoon and James Purnell insisted they had not broken any rules in not paying capital gains tax on profits from the sale of London homes.
The allegations against Mr Wiggin and Sir Peter came as a particularly unwelcome embarrassment for Mr Cameron as he travelled to Northern Ireland to “read the riot act” about expenses for abstentionist Sinn Féin MPs and his plans to end “dual mandates” for MPs and Assembly Members.
DUP leader Peter Robinson, meanwhile, launched his own major initiative to end the practice of “double jobbing” by most of his senior colleagues, in the context of an ongoing campaign to cut the cost of devolved government in Northern Ireland. Mr Robinson – who, with his MP wife Iris, has faced a media storm over their expenses and employment of family members – had signalled his intention to phase out the dual-member role, something common to the SDLP and Sinn Féin and, previously, the Ulster Unionists.
But party sources said he had brought forward his plans in response to the crisis gripping Westminster as a whole, and as a contribution to the collective efforts by all the party leaders in the Commons to rebuild public trust in the political process itself.
Under a radical reshuffle to be announced before the summer recess, it is expected only one of Mr Robinson’s MP colleagues will retain an Executive post or committee chairmanship at Stormont. Mr Robinson also confirmed that the DUP has submitted proposals on MPs’ salaries and allowances which go “significantly beyond” the interim reforms agreed by the party leaders at their meeting Westminster on Tuesday.
There was further outrage among the Tory high command yesterday after another retiring "grandee", Anthony Sheen, blamed the government for forcing him out and suggested the public should never have been allowed to see his expenses claims. Mr Steen announced he too would stand down at the general election after the Telegraphdisclosure that he spent tens of thousands of pounds on his country home, including the cost of a forestry expert to inspect some 500 trees on his estate. Mr Steen said Labour had "mucked up" the Westminster system by introducing the Freedom of Information Act, under which a redacted version of MPs claims was to have been published by Commons authorities in July.
Despite being advised there was a likely criminal dimension to the leak of the records to the Daily Telegraph, the Metropolitan Police confirmed earlier this week that it would not be launching an investigation into that aspect .