Life peerage for former Tory MP who fiddled expenses...

[dutchman]

David Cameron was accused of “bringing Parliament into disrepute” by handing a life peerage to Douglas Hogg, the former Tory MP who quit the Commons in disgrace over an expenses claim for his moat.



The Prime Minister elevated Mr Hogg to the Lords despite having to withdraw a previous nomination on the advice of a watchdog body.

Mr Hogg, who as Viscount Hailsham was already a non-working peer, had also tried to win a seat in the Lords on two other occasions without success.

Mr Cameron used the dissolution honours list to create 45 new peers, 26 of them Conservatives, including Kate Rock, a Conservative Party official who hosted George Osborne at her ski chalet in Klosters, Anne McIntosh, the former Tory MP who was deselected by her own constituency party, and Andrew Lansley, the former health minister.

But it was Mr Hogg’s appointment that prompted the most outrage.

He was the MP who claimed £2,115 in expenses to have the moat cleaned out at his Lincolnshire manor house, which he later repaid.

As a result of the scandal caused by The Daily Telegraph’s 2009 expose, he did not seek re-election in 2010, but was desperate to be elevated to the Lords.

The Labour MP John Mann said: "Creating 'Lord Moat' is an absolute disgrace. It is rewarding one of the very worst offenders of the expenses scandal. This brings Parliament into disrepute."

David Cameron put his name forward for a life barony to be included in the 2011 New Year Honours, but the House of Lords Appointments Commission advised against it, and his name was withdrawn.

The reason for the Commission’s decision was never disclosed, but its guidelines say nominees must have a strong commitment to the “highest standards of public life” and should comply “in a straightforward way with their obligations in relation to … the receipt of benefits”.

In 2013 Hogg tried another route into the Lords, when he stood twice for election to one of the hereditary peers’ seats in by-elections following the deaths of members, losing both times.

He will now be joining his wife Sarah, who was head of John Major’s policy unit and already sits in the Lords as a life peer.

Wes Sterling, a Labour backbencher, said Mr Cameron had shown “two fingers” to the electorate, while Lord Faulkes, a former Labour Scotland minister, said: "It is strange that someone rejected once manages to get in now. David Cameron must answer the question as to why the circumstances have changed between now and 2011."

[rebbonk]

What a shower of excrement they are.