More MPs prepare to step down
Updated on 22 May 2009
A Conservative backbencher claims that MPs are the victims of a "McCarthy-style witch-hunt" as the row over parliamentary expenses continued to claim more casualties.
Labour MP Ben Chapman and Conservative Anthony Steen both said they would stand down at the next election while maintaining that they had done nothing wrong.
Norwich North MP Ian Gibson has also offered to quit if the voters asked him to, amid claims that he sold a taxpayer-subsidised property to his daughter at half the market value. He insisted that he had acted within the rules. He said: "People will have their own experiences on mortgages and if they think this has gone too far then I would step down."
Conservative MP Nadine Dorries, who claimed yesterday there were fears that an MP could commit suicide, said the situation at Westminster had become "completely unbearable".
But her comparison with the notorious anti-communist witch-hunt by US senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s was branded as "facile" by Labour backbencher Stephen Pound, who said MPs had only themselves to blame for their current difficulties.
In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Ms Dorries, the MP for Mid Bedfordshire, said the relentless flow of disclosures by the Daily Telegraph, which has obtained the details of all MPs' expenses, was taking its toll.
"What the Telegraph are executing is almost a McCarthy-style witch-hunt," she said. "I think people are seriously beginning to crack. The last day of parliament this week was, I would say, completely unbearable. I have never ever been in an atmosphere or an environment like it, where everyone walks around with terror in their eyes.
"There is serious concern that this has almost got to the point now which is almost unbearable for any human being to deal with."
Tory Anthony Steen, who become embroiled in the expenses controversy for spending £90,000 on his second home over four years, launched an astonishing defence of his spending yesterday.
He said: "I've done nothing criminal, that's the most awful thing, and do you know what it's about? Jealousy. I've got a very, very large house. Some people say it looks like Balmoral. It's a merchant's house of the 19th century. It's not particularly attractive, it just does me nicely.”
He later apologised "unreservedly" for some of his comments, made in an interview on BBC Radio 4's World At One.
Ben Chapman, of Wirral South, became the first Labour MP to announce that he will stand down at the next election, following allegations that he overclaimed £15,000 in expenses for mortgage interest.
