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Ben Macintyre

Times columnist

There was the Rump Parliament (1649) and the Long Parliament (1640), the Mad Parliament (1258) and, quite simply, the Bad Parliament (1377). But what to call the 54th Parliament, which seemed so very long, so mad and, in many ways, so very bad? This will be, for ever, the Duck House Parliament. Little did Sir Peter Viggers imagine, when he ordered an obscure and expensive item of furniture for his pond, that he would be creating a grim leitmotif for an era of scandal that inflicted such damage on the institution he had served for 36 years. In a cruel twist, the wretched ducks did not even like their new house, which Sir Peter tried to include in his parliamentary expenses. They refused to live in it.

The Parliament ushered into being by the 2005 election and put out of its misery in April 2010, was one of astonishing turbulence, buffeted by scandal, economic meltdown and political acrimony. All the major parties changed leader: the Liberal Democrats twice. The Speaker was forced out of office for the first time since 1695. At the end of the Parliament, a remarkable 149 MPs stood down, including 100 Labour members and 35 Tories.

Far more important than the changing faces was the transformed relationship between the electors and the elected. Faith in politicians plummeted. After the expenses scandal of 2009, John Bercow, the new Speaker of the House of Commons, declared: “Let me be brutally honest about the scale of what has occurred. I cannot think of a single year in the recent history of Parliament when more damage has been done to it than this year, with the possible exception of when Nazi bombs fell on the chamber in 1941.”

The bomb of the expenses scandal fell from a sky that was already overcast and stormy. The election of 2005 brought some notable newcomers to the House, including Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband. When Tony Blair won his third consecutive victory in 2005, with a reduced overall majority of 66, the Afghan war was already four years old and the war in Iraq had been under way for two years. The Parliament started in a truculent mood, which got steadily worse. Mr Blair was accused of misleading Parliament over the war and of ruling in presidential style. Mounting war casualties, the bitter grinding rivalry between Blair and Brown and the Prime Minister’s growing unpopularity gave a sour, fin de siècle flavour of intrigue to the first two years of the Parliament, as it became ever clearer that Mr Blair would not fulfil a promise to serve a full third term.

David Cameron became leader of the Tories in October 2005 after a late surge of support. Sir Menzies Campbell took over leadership of the Liberal Democrats after Charles Kennedy resigned, citing a drink problem. Sir Menzies resigned after 19 months, paving the way for Mr Clegg to win the leadership by a waferthin margin. While the opposition parties forged new leaderships, the Blairites and Brownites traded blows and snide spin. The first attempted coup came in September 2006, when the Brownite parliamentary secretary at the Ministry of Defence, Tom Watson, signed a letter to Mr Blair asking that he resign to end the uncertainty over his succession. He was told to withdraw the letter or resign his ministerial position. He quit, with another broadside at Mr Blair: “I no longer believe that your remaining in office is in the interest of either the party or the country…the only way the party and the Government can renew itself in office is urgently to renew its leadership.”

Mr Blair described Mr Watson’s actions as “disloyal, discourteous and wrong”. The plot thickened when it appeared that Mr Watson had visited Mr Brown’s home in Scotland the day before the memo was sent. Mr Watson claimed that he had merely been dropping off a gift for the Browns’ new baby son, Fraser.

The uncertainty, the rumours, the whiff of conspiracy and allegations of treachery set the tone for the rest of the Parliament: a poisonous legacy that Mr Blair would bequeath to Mr Brown, along with the premiership, in June 2007. Mr Brown’s uncertainty over whether to call an election four months later, and his final decision to wait, compounded the impression, in some quarters, of a vacillating prime minister, untested at the polls and unwilling to throw the dice, holding on to office and motivated by expediency.

In April 2009, it emerged that Damian McBride, Mr Brown’s special adviser and former head of communications at the Treasury, had discussed with the former Labour Party official Derek Draper the setting up of a website to post false and scurrilous rumours about the private lives of senior Tories and their spouses. Mr McBride resigned. Mr Brown was publicly apologetic and privately apoplectic. “Smeargate” left another stain.

This, then, was the unsettled backdrop for the great expenses explosion: creeping political disillusionment and war-weariness, a sense that after coming to power amid widespread euphoria Blair had done little to change parliamentary culture, a souring economy and the looming spectre of recession, and the peculiarly nasty aftertaste of Mr McBride’s Smeargate. A series of smaller scandals paved the way, most notably when it emerged that the Conservative MP Derek Conway had employed his son, a full-time student at the time.

Under the old rules, MPs could claim expenses, including the cost of accommodation, “wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred for the performance of a Member’s parliamentary duties”. A Freedom of Information Act request filed early in 2008, aimed at finding out exactly what MPs were claiming, was challenged by the House of Commons authorities as “unlawfully intrusive”. When, after much legal wrangling, the House agreed to release the details, it did so with obvious reluctance, insisting that “sensitive” information be removed. Even before the touch-paper was lit, the House of Commons adhered firmly to the belief that how MPs chose to spend our money was their business, not ours.

On May 8, 2009 The Daily Telegraph obtained a full, uncensored copy of MPs’ expenses claims dating back to 2004 and began publishing details: first those of the Labour Party, then the Tories, then the Liberal Democrats and finally the smaller parties. The scandal touched every corner of Westminster: ministers, Shadow Cabinet members, backbenchers, MPs and peers. It was, as The Times observed, “a full-blown political crisis”. The ensuing outrage was focused on the abuse of parliamentary expenses relating to second homes: numerous MPs were accused of “flipping”, the term for switching the designation of a second home between a constituency and London property, to ensure maximum expenses. Some MPs were renting out properties while simultaneously claiming for second homes. Home improvements in some cases went far beyond “making good dilapidations”, suggesting that the expenses system was simply being milked as a way to increase property values, and turn a profit.

MPs were able to claim up to £400 a month for food, and many claimed every penny, every month, even when Parliament was not sitting. Items worth less than £250 could be claimed for without producing a receipt. A suspiciously large number of claims came in just under that mark.

The fallout was cataclysmic, and almost instantaneous. The headlines were devastating, revealing not only greed, but small-mindedness. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, was found to have claimed for various domestic items, including pornographic films viewed by her husband; the Tory MP Douglas Hogg claimed for the expense of cleaning the moat at his country house; Frank Cook, a Labour backbencher, tried to claim back £5 he had donated at a Battle of Britain memorial service.

And then there was the duck house. The “Stockholm” model, which Sir Peter Viggers bought in 2006 for £1,645, was 5ft high and positioned on a floating island. This was only part of the £30,000 Sir Peter claimed towards gardening at his home, including £500 for manure. He was never actually reimbursed for the duck home, as a Commons official wrote “not allowable” beside the claim. “I paid for it myself and in fact it was never liked by the ducks,” he said.

But it was the thought that counted.

Sir Peter made a statement: “I have made a ridiculous and grave error of judgment. I am ashamed and humiliated and I apologise.” He also announced that he would not be standing at the next election.

The shockwaves crashed through Westminster. It was the detail that inflicted the lasting damage, as much as the sums involved. The Daily Telegraph reported that Hazel Blears, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, had been claiming the maximum allowable expenses for three properties, £4,874 on furniture, £899 on a new bed and £913 on a new TV, the second such television in under a year. She volunteered to pay the £13,332 capital gains tax she had avoided on the sale of her second home, and stood down in June.

All parties moved to try to limit the fallout: Mr Brown publicly apologised “on behalf of all politicians”. Mr Cameron described some of the claims as “unethical and wrong” and announced that Shadow Cabinet members would repay all questionable claims. A panel, under the former civil servant Sir Thomas Legg, was established to begin the detailed accounting. Eventually each MP involved would be informed whether they would have to repay any expenses. Three Labour MPs and one Conservative peer would finally face criminal prosecution for “false accounting”.

Even more damaging than the accusations, in some cases, was the reaction of MPs to the charges. Some wriggled: Douglas Hogg insisted that the moat in question was more a “broad dyke”. Some dug themselves in deeper: “I have done nothing criminal, that is the most awful thing,” insisted the Tory MP Anthony Steen. “And do you know what it’s about? Jealousy. I’ve got a very, very large house. Some people say it looks like Balmoral.” Some seemed bizarrely sorry for themselves: Nadine Dorries, a Conservative MP, described the detailed media coverage of MPs’ expenses as a sort of torture.

Never has the cultural chasm between voters and their representatives seemed so vast. While most of Britain reeled from rising unemployment and fretted over mortgage payments, here was a world of moated second homes and ride-on lawnmowers, where the ducks were pampered in special houses, and people bragged of living in their own Balmoral. The gulf between the MPs’ sense of entitlement, and public outrage at the perceived pettiness and greed, could not have been wider. Publicly there was much handwringing, by those implicated and those in charge; privately, there was intense fury that the scandal had erupted, and then been left to swirl around unchecked. Many MPs felt hard done by, some with good reason, but there was no doubting the level of public anger over a system that was clearly seen, by far too many politicians, as an adjunct to their salaries, the trappings of an upper-middle-class lifestyle that they believed they deserved. Most seemed more angry than genuinely contrite.

At a time of deep financial uncertainty, the spectacle of MPs feathering their own nests, or duck houses, ignited a firestorm of public fury: two days after the scandal broke, the BBC programme Question Time attracted a viewership of nearly four million, the highest in its 30-year history.

The tale of sackings, de-selections, public apologies, repayment, retirement and, eventually, prosecutions, rumbling on for months, marked a low point in British political history. Some of the abuses were flagrant; some venial and some, frankly, irrelevant or unfair. Many decent, honourable and entirely honest MPs found themselves tarred by the overwhelming public perception that Westminster was rotten to the core. Some got their comeuppance; some watched, with horror, as the disillusionment that had marked the early stages of this Parliament turned to outright condemnation and calls for wholesale political reform.

The most high-profile casualty of all was the Speaker, Michael Martin. A Glasgow-born, hard-grained politician of the old-style Labour school, Mr Martin’s election in 2000 was controversial from the start. Some suspected him of bias.

Mr Martin’s own expenses had long been the subject of scrutiny: he used public money to employ a law firm to fight negative media stories, while his wife spent £4,000 on taxis. Refurbishing the Speaker’s official residence within the Palace of Westminster cost the taxpayer an estimated £1.7 million over seven years.

There was more than a hint of tribalism in Mr Martin’s resistance to the investigation of MPs expenses. His response to the exploding scandal appeared to be more concerned with the way the information had leaked out, than apologising, explaining or making amends.

To an increasing number, both inside and outside Parliament, Mr Martin was a symptom of the disease, a symbol of all that had gone wrong. Mr Clegg spoke for many when he declared that the Speaker had become an obstacle to reform. To his dwindling band of supporters, he was a scapegoat.

No Speaker had been forced out of office since Sir John Trevor was expelled for accepting bribes more than 300 years earlier. On May 19, 2009 the Conservative MP Douglas Carswell tabled a motion of no confidence, which was signed by 22 MPs. Later that day Mr Martin announced that he would resign from his position as Speaker of the House of Commons.

He took ermine in the Lords, becoming Lord Martin of Springburn. His throne in the House was occupied by John Bercow, elected on a promise to clean up Parliament. It subsequently emerged that the new Speaker had spent an additional £20,000 on refurbishing the grace-and-favour flat in the palace, again.

And so the Parliament – the “Rotten Parliament” as some were now calling it – wound down accompanied by a litany of recriminations, the familiar sound of plotting, and one last dollop of scandal.

In the autumn of 2008, Siobhain McDonagh, a junior government whip, who during her time in office had never voted against the Government, spoke of the need to discuss Mr Brown’s position as party leader. She was swiftly sacked.

Then, in the month that Mr Martin stepped down, James Purnell, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, delivered another blow to Mr Brown’s authority by announcing his resignation. This was not a statement of ambition but, far more threateningly, of principle. “I now believe your continued leadership makes a Conservative victory more, not less, likely…that would be disastrous for our country. I am therefore calling on you to stand aside to give our party a fighting chance of winning.”

As speculation about Mr Brown’s future swirled, his ministers backed him, with potential rivals such as Harriet Harman and David Miliband denying that they were preparing leadership bids. But with each plot, and each denial, his chances of clinging to power in the coming election seemed to recede. The final attempt to unseat him came in January 2010, when the former Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt and former Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon jointly called for a secret ballot on the future of Mr Brown’s leadership. The plot fizzled. Mr Brown later called the abortive mini-coup “a form of silliness”.

Perhaps the final symbolic motif for this grim Parliament came just before the election was announced, when Mr Hoon, Ms Hewitt and the former minister Stephen Byers were each caught out by undercover journalists posing as lobbyists. The former ministers appeared to be cashing in on their influence. Ms Hewitt explained that, for a fee of £3,000 a day, she could help “a client who needs a particular regulation removed, then we can often package that up”. Mr Hoon was heard saying that he was “looking forward to…something that, frankly, makes money”.

Above all, the crass remarks made by Mr Byers seemed to sum up the previous five years. “I am a bit like a sort of cab for hire,” he explained to the fake lobbyist. “I still get a lot of confidential information because I am still linked to No 10.” His trump card came close to self-parody: “We could have a word with Tony”. Mr Blair was long gone from No 10, but his potential earning power lingered on.

At the start of the 54th Parliament, public confidence in politicians was already crumbling; by the end it was radically eroded. The perception that MPs lined their own pockets at taxpayer expense was widespread in 2005; by 2010 it was universal conventional wisdom. Unfairly, but understandably, Parliament had come to be seen as one large rank of cabs for hire. The tumult, sleaze and political skulduggery left the public jaundiced and angry, and many MPs traumatised and exhausted. Contemplating her own retirement, Ann Widdecombe spoke for many when she remarked: “I find that my uppermost sentiment is one of profound relief.”

Like Oliver Cromwell, surveying the Rump Parliament, the public’s patience had run out: “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately…Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!” And they went: in addition to the 149 MPs who stood down before the 2010 election, 76 were voted out of office in May of that year. In some ways, both the level of interest in the election, and a result giving no party an overall majority, were also an accurate reflection of the rancour and uncertainty of the five years that preceded it.

The unhappy 54th Parliament was, perhaps, a necessary trauma. Wholesale political reform became inevitable. Closer scrutiny of parliamentary expenses began. The gravy train hit the buffers, making a fantastic mess that will take many years to clear up.

Britain has a new Parliament, a new form of government and a large new crop of MPs. They will make their own mistakes and commit their own sins, but only this can be predicted with absolute certainty: no MP in the 55th Parliament will ever buy a duck house. Ben Macintyre was parliamentary sketch writer for The Times from 2002-04