Литагент HarperCollins - The Times Guide to the House of Commons

On May 8, 2009 The Daily Telegraph obtained a full, uncensored copy of MPs’ expenses claims dating back to 2004 and began publishing details: first those of the Labour Party, then the Tories, then the Liberal Democrats and finally the smaller parties. The scandal touched every corner of Westminster: ministers, Shadow Cabinet members, backbenchers, MPs and peers. It was, as The Times observed, “a full-blown political crisis”. The ensuing outrage was focused on the abuse of parliamentary expenses relating to second homes: numerous MPs were accused of “flipping”, the term for switching the designation of a second home between a constituency and London property, to ensure maximum expenses. Some MPs were renting out properties while simultaneously claiming for second homes. Home improvements in some cases went far beyond “making good dilapidations”, suggesting that the expenses system was simply being milked as a way to increase property values, and turn a profit.

MPs were able to claim up to £400 a month for food, and many claimed every penny, every month, even when Parliament was not sitting. Items worth less than £250 could be claimed for without producing a receipt. A suspiciously large number of claims came in just under that mark.

The fallout was cataclysmic, and almost instantaneous. The headlines were devastating, revealing not only greed, but small-mindedness. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, was found to have claimed for various domestic items, including pornographic films viewed by her husband; the Tory MP Douglas Hogg claimed for the expense of cleaning the moat at his country house; Frank Cook, a Labour backbencher, tried to claim back £5 he had donated at a Battle of Britain memorial service.

And then there was the duck house. The “Stockholm” model, which Sir Peter Viggers bought in 2006 for £1,645, was 5ft high and positioned on a floating island. This was only part of the £30,000 Sir Peter claimed towards gardening at his home, including £500 for manure. He was never actually reimbursed for the duck home, as a Commons official wrote “not allowable” beside the claim. “I paid for it myself and in fact it was never liked by the ducks,” he said.

But it was the thought that counted.

Sir Peter made a statement: “I have made a ridiculous and grave error of judgment. I am ashamed and humiliated and I apologise.” He also announced that he would not be standing at the next election.

The shockwaves crashed through Westminster. It was the detail that inflicted the lasting damage, as much as the sums involved. The Daily Telegraph reported that Hazel Blears, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, had been claiming the maximum allowable expenses for three properties, £4,874 on furniture, £899 on a new bed and £913 on a new TV, the second such television in under a year. She volunteered to pay the £13,332 capital gains tax she had avoided on the sale of her second home, and stood down in June.

All parties moved to try to limit the fallout: Mr Brown publicly apologised “on behalf of all politicians”. Mr Cameron described some of the claims as “unethical and wrong” and announced that Shadow Cabinet members would repay all questionable claims. A panel, under the former civil servant Sir Thomas Legg, was established to begin the detailed accounting. Eventually each MP involved would be informed whether they would have to repay any expenses. Three Labour MPs and one Conservative peer would finally face criminal prosecution for “false accounting”.

Even more damaging than the accusations, in some cases, was the reaction of MPs to the charges. Some wriggled: Douglas Hogg insisted that the moat in question was more a “broad dyke”. Some dug themselves in deeper: “I have done nothing criminal, that is the most awful thing,” insisted the Tory MP Anthony Steen. “And do you know what it’s about? Jealousy. I’ve got a very, very large house. Some people say it looks like Balmoral.” Some seemed bizarrely sorry for themselves: Nadine Dorries, a Conservative MP, described the detailed media coverage of MPs’ expenses as a sort of torture.

Never has the cultural chasm between voters and their representatives seemed so vast. While most of Britain reeled from rising unemployment and fretted over mortgage payments, here was a world of moated second homes and ride-on lawnmowers, where the ducks were pampered in special houses, and people bragged of living in their own Balmoral. The gulf between the MPs’ sense of entitlement, and public outrage at the perceived pettiness and greed, could not have been wider. Publicly there was much handwringing, by those implicated and those in charge; privately, there was intense fury that the scandal had erupted, and then been left to swirl around unchecked. Many MPs felt hard done by, some with good reason, but there was no doubting the level of public anger over a system that was clearly seen, by far too many politicians, as an adjunct to their salaries, the trappings of an upper-middle-class lifestyle that they believed they deserved. Most seemed more angry than genuinely contrite.

At a time of deep financial uncertainty, the spectacle of MPs feathering their own nests, or duck houses, ignited a firestorm of public fury: two days after the scandal broke, the BBC programme Question Time attracted a viewership of nearly four million, the highest in its 30-year history.

The tale of sackings, de-selections, public apologies, repayment, retirement and, eventually, prosecutions, rumbling on for months, marked a low point in British political history. Some of the abuses were flagrant; some venial and some, frankly, irrelevant or unfair. Many decent, honourable and entirely honest MPs found themselves tarred by the overwhelming public perception that Westminster was rotten to the core. Some got their comeuppance; some watched, with horror, as the disillusionment that had marked the early stages of this Parliament turned to outright condemnation and calls for wholesale political reform.

The most high-profile casualty of all was the Speaker, Michael Martin. A Glasgow-born, hard-grained politician of the old-style Labour school, Mr Martin’s election in 2000 was controversial from the start. Some suspected him of bias.

Mr Martin’s own expenses had long been the subject of scrutiny: he used public money to employ a law firm to fight negative media stories, while his wife spent £4,000 on taxis. Refurbishing the Speaker’s official residence within the Palace of Westminster cost the taxpayer an estimated £1.7 million over seven years.

There was more than a hint of tribalism in Mr Martin’s resistance to the investigation of MPs expenses. His response to the exploding scandal appeared to be more concerned with the way the information had leaked out, than apologising, explaining or making amends.

To an increasing number, both inside and outside Parliament, Mr Martin was a symptom of the disease, a symbol of all that had gone wrong. Mr Clegg spoke for many when he declared that the Speaker had become an obstacle to reform. To his dwindling band of supporters, he was a scapegoat.

No Speaker had been forced out of office since Sir John Trevor was expelled for accepting bribes more than 300 years earlier. On May 19, 2009 the Conservative MP Douglas Carswell tabled a motion of no confidence, which was signed by 22 MPs. Later that day Mr Martin announced that he would resign from his position as Speaker of the House of Commons.

He took ermine in the Lords, becoming Lord Martin of Springburn. His throne in the House was occupied by John Bercow, elected on a promise to clean up Parliament. It subsequently emerged that the new Speaker had spent an additional £20,000 on refurbishing the grace-and-favour flat in the palace, again.