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Profile: Mr and Mrs Expenses
Terry Kirby14 May 2009
Just twenty-four hours ago, Andrew MacKay, a long-standing Tory MP and a key member of David Cameron's inner circle assured the local paper for his Bracknell constituency there was nothing 'unreasonable' in his expenses.
In words that today may appear somewhat self-delusional, he confidently declared: “I have checked through all my expense claims over the past four years and there is nothing that stands out – I am confident there is nothing unreasonable in there at all.”
His resignation as Cameron's close advisor, or consigliere as some inevitably dubbed the position, is the biggest blow he has suffered in a long, if unspectacular, political career.
MacKay, in fact, is probably better known as the husband of the slightly more glamorous former journalist Julie Kirkbride, the Conservative MP for Bromsgrove and, at 48, eleven years his junior. It is their dual claims for second home allowances that have now led his resignation. The couple have one son and he has two children from his first marriage.
He first entered Parliament in 1977, winning a by-election in Stetchford, Birmingham. He lost the seat in 1979, but returned four years later as the MP for East Berkshire and has represented the area ever since.
MacKay held shadow cabinet posts under John Major and William Hague, but returned to the backbenches in 2004. He was brought out of relative obscurity by Cameron in 2005 and given his key advisory role. Among the party he was seen as very loyal, fully signed up to the Cameron Conservative modernisation project and the possessor of a good political brain.
Although his prospects of a ministerial post in a future Cameron Government may seem to have been severely compromised by the expenses scandal, one Westminster insider said: He will be able to claim it was all approved by the Commons officials and if he pays off the debt, he could easily return as a minister in the future.''
Kirkbride, whose support for David Davies in the Conservative leadership contest appears to have kept her out of shadow cabinet contention, is, ironically, a former political journalist on the Daily Telegraph, which has been carrying the expenses discloses for the past week.
As a young reporter in the Parliamentary lobby, Kirkbride raised eyebrows and provoked admiring glances among the ranks of MP's with her penchant for short leather skirts. She later became engaged to Stephen Milligan, the Conservative MP who died accidentally during a bizarre auto-erotic asphyxiation incident in 1994. However, there were suggestions that the couple had split up just before his death.
A graduate of Girton College, Cambridge, Kirkbride also worked for the BBC, ITN and the Sunday Telegraph, before she became Conservative MP for Bromsgrove in 1997. She was briefly Tory spokeswoman on culture, media and sport during 2003-4.
Reader views (10)
We need to keep some balance about all this because MPs have a diificult and work long hours.
Some expenses such as a trouser press are in part to help the MP look presentable and avoid the donkey jacket complaints. Business people often claim for dry cleaning and mini bar expenses which is claimed with the hotel bill.
- Farthington Protheroe, Gloucester, UK, 15/05/2009 17:12
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Regrettably, it’s all getting rather like ancient Rome and the Establishment seems to be imploding on itself. Public confidence in politicians is at an all-time low. This is sad as some genuinely do work hard and get the job done. The Gravy Train must come to a grinding halt sooner rather than later. Combine this self-inflicted travesty with the enforced 2-week waste collection fiasco and when climatic temperatures increase so will public tempers. We may see riots in the streets if the bumbling political reps, we voted in, don’t pull their finger out quickly.
Pat Regan: author of Dirty Politics and Founder of Save Southport’s Greenbelt
- Pat Regan, southport, 15/05/2009 09:38
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It appears very clear to myself that it is the ‘Commons Officials’ who approved and allegedly advised many of these MPs that what they were claiming for was correct. It looks very much like a stinking set-up, for when any claim is made, it must or should be diligently screened as correct.
They the Government elect must now look to see if there were and are a body of people who’s aim was and is to discredit our MP’s. Andrew MacKay claims on National Television that he was doing what he was advised, if that be the case then the advisors must be severely punished for the harm they have inflicted upon our MPs. It is quite clear that we the public need independent moderators to oversee all these expenses in future.
Most MPs work very hard and what we in the UK are too good at is knifing one-another in the back. Little is thought of the good deeds that are done only the bad.
Signed Carl Barron Chairman of agpcuk
- Carl Barron, Christchurch, Dorset, 14/05/2009 22:33
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Unfortunately I live in Kirkbride's constituency, all we get are photo opportunities in the local press, I have asked for her help on issues and been stonewalled...referred to someone else, a total waste of money...oink!
- Bluenose, Bromsgrove, 14/05/2009 21:49
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Gosh, an ex-Telegraph journalist and Tory MP caught out fiddling her expenses, Michael Gove did the same, is there a theme emerging?
- R Rogers, Acton England, 14/05/2009 18:46
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This is an awful and shameful example of excess and the Police should be asked to investigate. It is difficult to see how Mr MacKay can defend his actions and equally difficult that his wife may also be implicated. David Cameron deserves better thab this from his MPs and, whilst he may suffer some collateral embarassment by the episode, he is to be applauded for introducing promptly measures that are fushing out the bad eggs.
- James Elliott, Eastbourne UK, 14/05/2009 16:02
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Morley suspended, Cameron must suspend them.
- David, exeter uk, 14/05/2009 15:15
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The pair of them should be taken to the stocks and publicly humiliated! The audacity of this couple beggars belief.
- Goggs, London, 14/05/2009 14:17
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This expenses row will go on and on and on and on and on.....until the Queen dissolves Parliament.
WHY ARE WE WAITING MA'AM?
- Reuben Camara, Morecambe UK, 14/05/2009 13:52
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Amazing and incredible this lot make Messrs. Bush Jr, Rumsfold and Cheney look like saints. WMDs do exist and they are based in SW1
- Victim, London, 14/05/2009 13:38
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