THE political fallout of “Expensesgate” will be felt just as strongly outside Westminster as it is in the gloomy confines of the palace – and in few places more so than up ’ere. Indeed, this scandal might well do for Gordon Brown’s administration.
With one member of the Government, justice minister Shahid Malik, compelled to resign and a prime ministerial envoy, Elliot Morley, deprived of the Labour Whip, the region has taken the biggest hit anywhere.
The day after Morley, MP for Scunthorpe, was booted out of the Parliamentary Labour Party for “sloppy accountancy” which allowed him to continue claiming £16,000 expenses on a mortgage that had already been paid off, angry readers of my local newspaper voted 97 per cent in favour of him quitting as an MP.
And a local ex-Labour fruit and veg merchant, Stuart Maw, began collecting funds to stand against Morley if he doesn’t go down before the general election. His platform: “A protest against the current state of politics to send a clear message that we’ve had enough of this shambles.”
Morley, who may have answered the eternal question of “who put the c*** in Scunthorpe?”, has declined to stand down, arguing that local people and his constituency party will determine his future. CLP chairman Mick Grant studiously avoided giving him public endorsement, saying only “It would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.” There’s that “inappropriate” word again. Nothing is less appropriate than its use at this juncture.
High-flyer Mailk explained his £703 expenses claim for a massage chair on a bad back. It’s not his back I’m worried about. It’s his front. Malik’s stunningly self-confident demeanour during a raft of television interviews in the kitchen of his Dewsbury home only hours before he resigned struck the wrong note.
There is, of course, no simple right note. Contrition in the mouths of errant Tories sounds as convincing as an Arthur Scargill promise to be flexible in negotiations. But I’m not sure Malik was wise to lead so aggressively with his chin. “I have absolutely nothing to apologise for,” he declared. This may prove to be the case, but since he is repaying £1,050 – half the price of his home cinema –
to local charities (rather than the Westminster fees office), he might have profited from a less emotional presentation. Tough on the telly and tough on the causes of telly comes over as protesting too much.
Malik had one piece of good fortune over the weekend. A leading Asian Tory councillor in Dewsbury, Khizar Iqbal, quit his party and announced that he will stand as an independent Conservative for the constituency next year. He made his move in the belief that the official Tory candidate, barrister Simon Reevell, will not be able to overturn Labour’s slim majority in Dewsbury. If Iqbal splits the Tory vote, Malik is still in with a fighting chance – always assuming that he is cleared by Westminster watchdog Sir Philip Mawer of breaching the ministerial code over allegations of a discounted rent at his constituency home.
A novel, if predictable, feature of this scandal is the on-line venom heaped on the heads of luckless MPs. A Facebook site entitled “Elliot Morley is a disgrace” attracted more than 300 members, and almost the same number heaped vitriol on a site devoted to Shahid Malik.
The political fallout doesn’t end with this pair. Fabian Hamilton’s North East Leeds was already looking a bit iffy before the Daily Telegraph exposed his interesting redefinition of expenses entitlement, and local TV reported a hostile reception on the streets to his “mea non culpa”. It would take a swing of 7.6 per cent to the Tories to oust him.
Ian Cawsey, Elliot Morley’s pal and tenant in his London “primary residence” for which they both briefly claimed second homes allowance, is less safe in neighbouring Brigg and Goole. Labour is vulnerable there to a swing of only 4 per cent, despite boundary redrawing that helps the Government, and being dragged into Expensesgate is not going to help his chances of re-election.
A common theme heard in the region’s media, as elsewhere, is “a plague on all your houses”. A poll in the Yorkshire Post asking: “Do you still trust your MP?” attracted an 87 per cent “No” vote.
The signs of an organised campaign by “Disgusteds of Dewsbury” to unseat Labour MPs named and shamed by the Torygraph are as meagre as some of the charges hurled against the region’s parliamentarians. The unknown unknown is whether such a movement will appear in coming months or whether the scandal will simply die down. Esther Rantzen may threaten Margaret Moran in Luton. I can’t see her coming up ’ere.
