Squeaky clean? Nick Clegg is sleazier than you think

Chief among Nick Clegg’s grand claims during this election is that he is Britain’s ‘most honest’ political leader.

Chief among Nick Clegg’s grand claims during this election is that he is Britain’s ‘most honest’ political leader. The Lib Dems, he promises, will clean up our politics. And when it comes to politicians using expenses to game the property market or to dodge capital gains tax, he’s delighted to declare his party squeaky clean. ‘Not a single Liberal Democrat MP,’ he swanked in last week’s debate, ‘did either of those things.’ House flipping, it seems, is too gauche for the yellow party. Their expenses scam was a more nuanced affair.

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In fact, before the expenses scandal blew up, the Lib Dems centrally directed their MPs to exploit their own claims as ruthlessly as possible for party purposes. Take, for example, a 2008 presentation in which Lib Dem MPs were advised to ‘maximise the amount being claimed’ and wangle taxpayers’ money to fund campaign literature in defiance of the spirit (but not the letter) of Westminster rules. In words that should make Mr Clegg blush, MPs were told that there were ‘grey areas’ in the parliamentary rules and ‘lots of scope… so be imaginative’. And, of course, by being ‘imaginative’, MPs could minimise the cost of campaigning for the party and burden the taxpayer with as much as possible.

One terribly imaginative MP is Paul Rowen, the Lib Dem member of the Public Administration Committee. Inquires by The Spectator have established that when Rowen was a mere candidate, a company called Rochdale Reform Buildings ‘freely gifted’ office space to him. Since he gained access to a parliamentary expense account in 2005, however, taxpayers have shelled out over £14,000 to this curious company, which, on closer examination, is run by local Liberal Democrats and indeed donates to his campaign.