Ducking and diving!

Just to put the facts straight, I suggested that Bill Wiggin had the duck pond expenses. It was actually Sir Peter Viggars. That's the trouble with reading "raw data" hot off the press! Still, both are in deep doodoo and Sir Peter has actually decided to stand down as a result of the Telegraph's exposure.

It is interesting that the MPs standing down are the ones involved mainly in "gardening expenses" and the phantom mortgage merchants are standing firm. This scandal is not over yet, it seems.

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A wiggin' for Wiggin - and no ducking the issue!

Bill Wiggin must have felt he was getting a free run of the Tuck Shop. After all, the House of Commons has been likened to a public school. A kind of mutation formed by mixing the Greyfriars rascals with a bunch of miscreants from St.Trinians.

What was he thinking? Another having claimed mortgage interest on a constituency home even though the house had never had a mortgage on it! And being a whip too. Maybe they should bring back the cane.

But he really was pushing his luck by claiming £2,000 for a duck island. Did these ducks make any real contribution to his work as an MP?

Any another MP, Gosport Conservative Sir Peter Viggers, claimed £20,000 on gardening expenses. Is this horticultural wonder going to be opened to the public? Free of charge, tea and thrown in.

In the Westminster system, the whips are like prefects at a public school. These prefects either knew nothing or they knew everything. Either way, they are guilty of not doing their jobs properly.

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Douglas Hogg to stand down

Douglas Hogg, the Conservative MP who had a dirty moat, has announced his resignation. The Sleaford and North Hykeham MP has announced that he will stand down at the next election and apologised for the "collective and personal" failure over expenses.

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