The expenses scandal has delighted the Tories — it keeps Brown in power

7 November 2009

James Forsyth reviews the week in Politics

This is all the more agonising for MPs because in a panic they voted away their right to set their own pay and conditions: they are at Kelly’s mercy. So they are putting their hopes in the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, the body that the Kelly review will be referred to. It won’t be up and running until the New Year but they hope it will dilute some of Kelly’s most unpalatable proposals (as Harriet Harman was strongly signalling it would). One MP, for example, told me that he thought the independent panel would allow him to keep his second home because renting a house in his constituency would be more expensive than his mortgage interest.

In Cameron’s circle, there was intense discussion of how he could once more steal a march on Brown over expenses. One idea discussed was calling for the immediate implementation of the review; a call that would have been meaningless given that the legislation means that it has to be referred to the IPSA, but would have produced a strong soundbite for the six o’clock news. The Cameron leadership has always had an eye for a stunt and the prospect of being able to skewer the Prime Minister — as either the defender of the troughers or as a leader too weak to stand up to his own backbenchers — was tempting. (Think of the Blair soundbite, ‘I lead my party, he follows his.’)

On the Labour side, the dynamics are very different. The expenses scandal has killed leadership speculation. One Cabinet member complains that the Kelly affair has ‘discombobulated’ the backbenchers — instead of plotting to depose Gordon Brown, as they should be, they are worrying about their mortgage interest. Should the expenses issue be resolved somehow, they might once again devote their mental energy to good old- fashioned disloyalty.