I never promised you a rose garden!

I saw Ann Widdecombe on Sky News this morning. She's got a point. This review by Sir Thomas Legg is a kind of overlap with the Kelly review. Legg has changed the rules retrospectively. As she says, no employer who agreed an expenses formula and then changed it to suit the circumstances and demanded a proportion to be repaid would be allowed to get away with it. The employer would be up before an employment tribunal.

Added to this David Cameron is now saying that if his MPs do not pay back money at the end of the expenses review they will not be able to stand again for the Conservatives. Sorry David, this is MORAL BLACKMAIL!!!! You should be ashamed of yourself. It is one thing to be found out abusing a system, but it is quite another to rebuke a member for conscientiously abiding by the rules and then, when a figure of authority makes up revised rules, force them to "repay".

I get the sense that David Cameron is desperately trying to set himself up on the moral high ground so that nothing will impede his pursuit of power. I'd rather have a Conservative party in government that got there by fair means rather than by foul ones.

Legg has changed the rules to suit the perceived circumstances. It's rather like a football referee disallowing a goal because he's reading the latest tips from Wisden. Sir Thomas is on about gardening expenses. I don't know the cost of lawn mowing as I do it myself, but if it was in the rules, how come £1,000 is now the arbitrary limit?

He might have ended his letter with "I never promised you a rose garden" because what we have here is a situation which now stinks like it has had a truckload of manure dumped on it.

Posted in: Ann Widdecombe,David Cameron,MPs expenses