Saturday 5th April

It seems that this is the problem that just won’t go away.  This time it is Maria Miller, the Culture Secretary, who apart from this incident seemed quite reasonable.  The issue is that she was claiming mortgage and other expenses on a second home in which her parents were actually living, though Ms Miller had bought the house before they moved in.  Her argument is that they are living with her, and she is effectively their carer, but it doesn’t disguise the fact that she was hauled up before the Parliamentary Commissioners who said that she was actually guilty.   They were particularly frustrated by her refusal to answer questions or provide information and actually said she was unco-operative and had ade their job very difficult.  Unfortunately their report was then examined by a committee of MPs who watered it down and reduced the amount she was to repay by an enormous amount, and said that she wasn’t actually in the wrong, but had failed to take note of changes in the interest rate.  She was however forced to apologise to the House.

But the story now gets murky, as there have been threats to journalists investigating the whole story and linking it to the Leveson proposals (still not fully resolved, but part of her remit) and as is the nature of these things the story now won’t go away.  We will see how things develop, but at least one other MP was forced to pay back all his expenses claimed in a very similar case.  Is it a cover-up?  Who knows, though I think that this story will dribble on and on.   Besides which Ms Miller has the full support of Mr. Cameron….hahaha.

So, come the next re-shuffle and Ms Miller will be demoted, though Cameron has already been heavily criticized for the low number of women in his cabinet, so she may just be moved down a bit.  The trouble with Prime Ministers is that they always fully support their colleagues and this is a red flag to the press who love nothing more than forcing a Cabinet Minister to resign.  We will see.