David Cameron was incredulous. “What the bloody hell is a duck island?” he
exploded.
It was Wednesday afternoon and his two most senior aides, Ed Llewellyn, chief
of staff, and Andy Coulson, director of communications, had just crept into
the Tory leader’s office to tell him about the latest expenses revelations.
Among the now almost routine disclosures about fishy mortgage claims and
second home “flipping” was one that set new standards for outrageousness.
Sir Peter Viggers, the Conservative MP for Gosport, had put in an expenses
claim for the £1,645 cost of a floating duck house in the garden pond at his
Hampshire home. He had said the structure was to provide sanctuary for his
water fowl from foxes.
Cameron immediately realised that the duck house was destined to join Douglas
Hogg’s moat in the rogues’ gallery of grotesque claims that have driven
Britain's voters into a state of collective fury. “Get me the chief!” he
demanded.
The Tory chief whip, Patrick McLoughlin, duly tracked down Viggers to
Washington DC, where he was on a tax-payer-funded “fact-finding mission”.
The punishment was swift and brutal.
McLoughlin, a no-nonsense working-class former coal miner from Derbyshire,
told the urbane Viggers he had a simple choice: agree to quit at the next
general election or face the humiliation of being hauled before the party’s
“star chamber” on expenses. Viggers, 71, took the former option and became
the latest casualty of a scandal whose destructive power is without
precedent in modern political history.
An analysis conducted by The Sunday Times and Colin Rallings, professor of
politics at Plymouth University, suggests that at least half the current 646
MPs will disappear from the House of Commons at the next general election
either through retirement, forced resignation or defeat at the polls.
The clear-out could be larger even than 1945 Labour landslide, which saw more
than 300 MPs leave parliament and ushered in a new generation of leaders
including future prime ministers Harold Wilson and James Callaghan.
However out of the current chaos and destruction, the more farsighted
political leaders are seizing the opportunity to create something new.
For Cameron, there is a chance to clear out the so-called “bed blockers”, the
pensionable-age backwoodsmen who stand in the way of him realising his
vision of a young, modern Tory party.
Gordon Brown, who has been slow to respond to the scale of the crisis, now
sees his chance to settle old scores and give the cabinet the shape he
wants. Hazel Blears, for example, the communities secretary who flipped her
homes and was forced to pay back £13,000 in capital gains tax, faces the axe
from cabinet only in part because of her expenses claims. Her previous
“YouTube if you want to” jibe about the prime minister’s embarrassing
internet broadcasts has not been forgotten.
Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, is grabbing at the opportunity
provided by the ousting of Michael Martin, the Commons Speaker, last week to
push his agenda for constitutional reform. Some Lib Dems even think the
chaos provides excuse to dust down proposals for proportional representation
in Westminster elections. It is a pipe dream perhaps, but a sign of how the
political debate has shifted in just three weeks.
In this fast-changing landscape, who will emerge as the winners and losers
from the great expenses scandal?
MOST “lobby-fodder” backbenchers were not dreaming of new opportunities as
they limped home to their constituencies on Thursday for the Whitsun recess.
Many have been broken by personal humiliation in the media. Others are
bewildered by the collapse in public confidence in politicians.
“Is this what I have given up watching my children grow up for?” said a
fortysomething former Labour minister. “I cannot see any reason to stay on
in the Commons.”
According to another former minister, dozens of backbenchers, even ones who
have not been accused of any creative claiming, are set to leave the Commons
at the next election. “It just doesn’t seem worth it. Their families hate
seeing them on the front pages,” said the former minister.
Party whips estimate that about 170 Labour MPs will retire. At least 38 have
already signalled their intention to do so, joined yesterday by Ian
McCartney, the former party chairman.
While Cameron dismissed claims by the backbench Tory Nadine Dorries that some
MPs were cracking up and could be driven to suicide as “completely wacky”, a
senior Conservative whip confirmed that a secret list has been drawn up of
“emotionally vulnerable” MPs.
Labour MPs are particularly concerned about David Chaytor, the Bury North MP,
who claimed £13,000 on a phantom mortgage. His humiliation came days before
the death of his mother, for whom he had been chief carer. This week he is
preparing both for her funeral and an appearance before a Labour
disciplinary committee.
The prime minister, meanwhile, is spending the parliamentary break plotting
his summer relaunch and a cabinet reshuffle. Downing Street aides accept
that little can now be done to influence the result of the European
elections a week on Thursday when Labour is widely expected to come third -
or perhaps even fourth behind the UK Independence party.
In the days after the poll, however, Brown will seek to be decisive with a
cabinet reshuffle. He has been here before – in the second half of last year
- when cabinet insurrection almost forced him from office. Then, a dramatic
reshuffle, bringing back Peter Mandelson as business secretary, helped
silence the critics, at least for a while.
Now the prime minister needs to pull another rabbit out of the hat. Expect to
see a return for David Blunkett, the former home secretary, who is likely to
be given a party campaigning role outside the cabinet. Peter Hain, the
former work and pensions secretary forced from office by a police
investigation into political fundraising, could come back as Welsh secretary.
Jacqui Smith, the accident-prone home secretary, has already told Brown she is
ready to leave government. Tom Watson, the Cabinet Office minister wrongly
accused of involvement in the Damian McBride smear e-mails, will return to
the back benches. He has told friends he is exhausted by government and
wants to see more of his two children.
The big battle in No 10 is, however, over the future of Alistair Darling.
Brown is considering moving the chancellor and replacing him with Ed Balls,
the schools secretary who was Brown’s chief economic adviser at the Treasury.
Some No 10 insiders are aghast at the prospect. “He is blind to the fact that
Ed is a deeply divisive figure with ambitions of his own to lead the party,”
one minister said. “Gordon feels he owes Ed and that Ed would get to grips
with the economy better than Alistair.”
Last year Mandelson proved to be Brown’s salvation. Now he is part of the
problem. The business secretary is determined to push through controversial
plans to part-privatise the Royal Mail despite the threat of revolt from 150
Labour backbenchers. Last week Mandelson met Ken Clarke, his Tory shadow, to
appeal for his party’s support in the crucial vote expected next month.
“We are not going to give anything to the rebels which might put off the
private sector bidders,” Mandelson is understood to have said. “It must be
real reform.”
Labour whips shake their heads in despair. “This could be our Maastricht,”
said one, referring to the debates over Europe that split the Tory party in
the 1990s. “We might get the bill through with Tory party support, but the
Labour parliamentary party would become totally ungovernable.”
Under pressure from Nick Brown, the chief whip, the prime minister has been
considering a grand promotion for Mandelson, possibly replacing David
Miliband as foreign secretary.
Reshuffling Darling or Miliband would carry huge risk. Neither wants to move.
Might one of them refuse their new job and quit the government? The prime
minister will have to weigh up his options carefully.
Then there is the Alan Johnson issue. The popular, blokeish health secretary
is being urged by disgruntled Labour MPs to challenge Brown for the
leadership. They hope Johnson’s easygoing charm could help limit Labour’s
defeat at the next general election.
One backbencher said he had a five-minute conversation with the health
secretary last week about taking on Brown. “I thought it was interesting
that he never said categorically that he would not have a go,” said the MP.
“Alan simply expressed concern that he might not be able to beat the
Tories.” No 10’s strategy is to kill Johnson’s ambitions with kindness. “AJ
[Johnson] is a great communicator. He can have any job he wants,” said a
source.
Alongside these “elective” changes, Brown may also be forced into unwanted
moves because of the expenses scandal. Andy Burnham, the culture secretary,
will come under pressure after the revelations in this newspaper that he did
not pay tax on a windfall he received as a result of renting his second home.
Tony McNulty, the employment minister who claimed on a second home owned by
his parents, is in deep trouble. It is understood that the GMB union is to
withdraw financial support from his local Harrow East party. It might not be
a coincidence that the union’s general secretary Paul Kenny lives in
McNulty’s constituency.
Friends say Kenny has been annoyed that, while he commutes into work daily
using public transport, the minister is ferried around by chauffeured car.
Other unions are understood to be furious at the scandal and will consider
whether to drop funding for miscreants’ election campaigns.
The trouble for Brown does not end there. Female MPs are understood to be
angry that Blears, in particular, has been singled out for criticism - Brown
called her behaviour “totally unacceptable” - while No 10 has staunchly
defended Geoff Hoon, the transport secretary, and James Purnell, the work
and pensions secretary, or even Darling, who all also failed to pay capital
gains tax on second homes.
Downing Street last week put up a legalistic defence of their conduct,
insisting they were in the clear because they had consulted the Inland
Revenue over their property dealings. If public anger fails to abate in the
next two weeks, however, Brown may find himself forced to sack one or more
of his praetorian guard.
CAMERON also faces a potential revolt from members of his own party. In the
dining room of a Pall Mall club last week a small group of right-wing Tories
and their friends met for lunch. Dominating the discussions was the sense of
injustice and double standards.
“Why have people like Michael Gove [the schools spokesman] and Ed Vaizey
[culture spokesman] got away with a slap on the wrists when they spent
thousands on furniture bought from Cameron’s mother-in-law?” said one MP.
He was referring to the upmarket furniture shop Oka, part owned by Samantha
Cameron’s mother Lady Astor, which is popular with Cameron groupies.
“It is like anyone in the Tory party who has grey hair is being taken out and
shot,” added one diner.
Cameron’s aides had clocked the growing unrest and recognised the need for a
high-profile sacrifice. Yesterday he forced his former chief political
adviser Andrew MacKay to announce his resignation from the Commons. The
Bracknell MP was caught claiming £170,000 for two separate second homes with
his wife Julie Kirkbride, a fellow MP. It is understood he was offered a
deal whereby if he resigned then Kirkbride would be spared disciplinary
action.
“Dave was aware that he needed to be seen to lose someone close to him, to
share the pain,” a Tory aide said.
The forced retirement of Tory MPs will necessarily create a younger breed of
politician after the next election. And with them will come new a flood of
new ideas, which will have new currency given the disgrace of the old order.
With a new Speaker leading the way, they will be able to set about reforming
parliament.
The novelist Louise Bag-shawe, Tory candidate in Corby, thinks the silver
lining in the expenses scandal is that the departure of old Tory grandees
will open up opportunities for even more new talent.
“The party was monolithic: 90% white men,” she said. “There are a lot of good,
talented young people - men, women, ethnic minority candidates - who are
more than capable of taking on safe seats.”
Other rising stars profess a readiness to give voters more power. Jesse
Norman, the Tory candidate in Hereford, is a supporter of “open primaries” -
a system in which all local people have a say in selecting candidates rather
than just party bosses.
“I was selected by open primary,” he said. “Anyone could vote and it was a
packed meeting. It meant that when I started to address public issues in my
constituency, I was already speaking from a cross-section of support. We’re
going to get more of that.”
Zac Goldsmith, the environmental campaigner and Tory candidate for Richmond
Park, would go even further, decentralising power and making more use of
referendums.
“People feel, and indeed are, disempowered,” he said. “The answer is to give
them real involvement. Some issues, like defence, would need to be exempt
for obvious reasons, but on a wide range of local and national issues,
people should be able to trigger referendums. It shouldn’t be too easy, but
it should be possible. The effect would be much better-in-formed and more
widespread debate, and better-quality decisions would be made.”
Such reforming zeal is not limited to the Tories. New young candidates in
Labour’s ranks endorse similar ideas, believing that the rise of the
internet and the decay of deference demand a new engagement with voters.
Chuka Umunna, the 30-year-old Labour candidate in Streatham, said: “I am
really keen on more public involvement in the selection of candidates. The
power to shortlist candidates could be retained by the party, but you could
consider introducing some public involvement in selecting the actual
candidate.”
Public fury at the expenses scandal is so strong, says Umun-na, that rebellion
is in the air. “This week over 200 mainly young Labour parliamentary
candidates, activists and coun-cillors signed a letter that was sent to the
Labour National Executive Committee, criticising the leadership for not
showing a proper lead on this,” he said.
“Could you imagine that happening even 12 months ago?”
It is indeed a period of unimagined realities in Britain’s political life. Not
least among them is the public enthusiasm for a snap general election. An
ICM poll published yesterday found that two-thirds of voters wanted Brown to
go to the country before Christmas.
The prime minister is said to be sticking to his long-game strategy, hoping
that the economy will improve in the next 11 months before a poll has to be
called. However it will not take many more moats or duck islands before the
public cla-mour for an immediate clear-out of the Commons becomes
irresistible.
Give them a prize
We can exclusively reveal the favourites for the parliamentarian of the year
awards
Cheapskate of the year
Now the most prestigious award of all. The clear winner is Laura Moffatt, MP
for Crawley. She doesn’t have a second home and if she has to work late she
sleeps on a camp bed in her Commons office.
Prize: to be booted out anyway at the election
Most dimwitted interview of the year
We’re just jealous because he’s got a very big house; it suits him very
nicely; and, frankly, it’s none of our business that we’re paying for its
upkeep. Step forward Anthony Steen.
Prize: an ornamental duck house, donated by Sir Peter Viggers, who
doesn’t seem to want it any more
Orator of the year
Speaker Michael Martin, for his resignation speech. Not that you could
technically call it a speech, more of a mention in passing: “Order, order.
I’ll be off then. Satisfied now?”
Prize:a peerage
Special award for the MP with the least insight
To Harriet Harman, deputy Labour leader, leader of the Commons, lord privy
seal and minister for women, who says: “I don’t regard myself as a member of
the political class.”
Prize:the removal of many of those jobs at the next election
