MPs' expenses: David Cameron slaps down 'wacky' Nadine Dorries
David Cameron has slapped down backbencher Nadine Dorries who claimed that MPs were victims of a "McCarthy-style witch-hunt" over their expenses claims.
Miss Dorries has tried to claim that the situation at Westminster has become "completely unbearable".
The MP has claimed that fellow politicians are close to "cracking" following the disclosures about their MP's expenses in The Daily Telegraph
But, asked about her comments, Mr Cameron said MPs should be more concerned about what their constituents were thinking.
"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," he told the BBC.
There was clear anger among the Tory high command at the latest intervention by the outspoken Mid Bedfordshire MP, with one senior source describing her comments as "completely wacky".
In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Ms Dorries complained about the continuing disclosures by the Daily Telegraph.
"What the Telegraph are executing is almost a McCarthy-style witch-hunt," she said.
"I have never ever been in an atmosphere or an environment like it."
But she also claimed that the additional cost allowance has "always been counted as part of an MP's salary" - but "done quietly".
Her remarks came the day after Tory grandee Anthony Steen was forced to issue an apology after claiming that he was the victim of "jealousy" among his Devon constituents who were envious of his large house.
Mr Cameron disclosed that he had warned Mr Steen that he would have the Tory whip withdrawn - effectively expelling him from the parliamentary party - if there was any repeat of his remarks in a radio interview yesterday.
"I gave him a very clear instruction after that interview - one more squeak like that and he will have the whip taken away from him so fast his feet won't touch the ground. It was a completely unacceptable interview," he told BBC Radio 4's The World at One.
The Tory leader acknowledged that the current row over MPs' expenses could play into the hands of the minor parties at the European and local government elections on June 4.
"I think there is a mood on behalf of the public. They are very angry, they have every right to be angry and I think they will give the major parties a kicking," he said.
Miss Dorries, the high-profile Tory MP has faced questions over her parliamentary expenses after admitting she only spends free weekends and holidays in the property she designates as her main home.
She was forced to apologise to her constituents for keeping the location of the house a secret.
Today, however, she claimed that the £24,222-a-year additional costs allowance (ACA) - at the centre of the expenses scandal disclosed over the last 15 days by The Telegraph - has "always been known and has always been counted as part of an MP's salary".
"This is always done quietly," she admitted, before suggesting that it did not even matter what the ACA money - the use of which has caused so much public anger in the wake of the Telegraph disclosures - was spent on.
"It has always been the way it has been done and everyone knows that," she said.
"The ACA was a lump sum of money... MPs were told to use that money because it wasn't expenses, it was an allowance in lieu of having pay rises.
"Actually what it was spent on is possibly even regardless because the principle is that lump sum of money, particularly for the old guard of MPs, we told that's your due."
But Labour MP John Mann said that it was "wrong and immoral" for Miss Dorries to blame the Fees Office and challenged her to prove her assertion that MPs had been encouraged to maximise their claims.
"Blaming the Fees Office is wrong and immoral - this is a team of hard-working staff who have to deal with 646 MPs and manage an endless flow of invoices, bills, enquiries and correspondence," he said.
"MPs have set their own moral compass and Nadine must face up to the realities of openness and transparency."
One Labour MP, Stephen Pound, warned that MPs could not expect public sympathy and dismissed her comparison of the current situation with the anti-communist witch-hunts of US senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s as "facile".
"McCarthy's victims were innocent and no MP is innocent. Even people who didn't claim were still complicit in the situation.
"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," he said.
----- Original Message -----Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 7:44 PMSubject: Britannia Radio: Nadine Dorries and How the Media Interview TO PREVENT THE TRUTH FROM COMING OUT..CLASSIC HEGALIAN DIALECTICS; PROBLEM- REACTION -SOLUTION..click to listenNadine Dorries and How the Media InterviewTO PREVENT THE TRUTH FROM COMING OUTCLASSIC HEGALIAN DIALECTICS; PROBLEM- REACTION -SOLUTIONInterviews onRadio 5 LiveRadio 4 TodayRadio LBC James O BrienMPs' ExpensesThursday, 21 May 2009
What it looks like, therefore, is that MPs have not only granted themselves very substantial, covert pay rises, they have rather neatly passed into law their own tax immunity.
And, of course, the original clause was written into the Bill (as was) by the Blair government, from which the then prime minister was to benefit hugely
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Telegraph Takes Down Nadine's Blog
Iain Dale 10:49 AM
Having not gone to bed until 3.30am I have to admit I have been very lazy this morning and only just got up. And what do I find? That the world has gone mad. Dizzy has the scoop that that Telegraph's owners have had Nadine Dorries's blog taken down. I knew it had disappeared last night but assumed it was server capacity. Sadly it was not.Lawyers acting for the Barclay brothers, Withers, instructed the takedown to Acidity via mail last night, citing the Acceptable User Policy. The takedown will be bolstered by the Godfrey vs Demon precendent, where an order can be made and it will be done instantly. Of course, if the website was being hosted in the USA it would be much harder to order the instant takedown. You'd think though, that if the allegations were moonbat untrue there would just be a "point, laugh and call them ridiculous" strategy rather than ordering a takedown to gag Nadine from saying it. This is especially the case I would've thought because once Recess is over, Nadine would be free to say such things in the House and be protected by Parliamentary Privilege. By taken her down like this the Telegraph will have fed the very idea of some sort of hidden agenda. Suppression, whether it is of speech that is right or wrong, is usually counterproductive.
This reminds me of the Usmanov case where a Russian Oligarch had a British blog's site taken down by its hosts because it didn't like what that particular blogger was saying. The whole British blogosphere rowed in behind him to support his right to free speech. I wonder if the same will happen here.
As I made clear yesterday, I didn't agree with all of what Nadine was saying on her blog yesterday. But so what. I defend her right to say it, no matter how ill advised I think some of it might have been for her personally. Can it really now be illegal or libellous to question a newspaper's agenda and motives, or those of its owners? Is it really illegal to accuse someone of a witchhunt? I don't happen to think that the Telegraph is undertaking a witchhunt, but I can quite see why some MPs do. Those who believe Nadine's main accusation, which is that the Telegraph has an agenda to boost UKIP and the BNP, may, at first sight, have their views reinforced by this morning's edition which has a lengthy profile of UKIP leader Nigel Farage. Reading it, however, it's not quite the paen of praise it might first appear.
Internet Service Providers needs to develop some cojones in the face of legal threats from big companies. If this had been an American ISP they would have probably laughed at the letter sent by the Telegraph.
Interestingly, the rest of the media seems to have become a little more sympathetic to Nadine's stance - something which the Telegraph's action will only accelerate. She has an article in the Independent this morning, and that newspaper's main leader is headlined THE PURSUIT OF MPs IS BECOMING A WITCHHUNT. The Times's Danny Finkelstein agrees with Nadine that suicides are quite possible.
No doubt, more later...
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