The cautionary tale of the MP and his secretary

I doubt whether there's any sympathy for MPs at the moment but imagine this.

You're an MP who happens to marry your long-time secretary.

You both own part of a flat in London you use as your second home.

You decide to buy her share of the flat out just to be above board on your mortgage interest claims for the property, and are given advice from the Commons that it's the correct thing to do.

Several years later, you are berated by the press for taking that advice.

Then an investigation into those mortgage arrangements decides it wasn't the right advice and asks you to pay some of the money claimed back.

Then you're told you may have to sell the flat and but you won't be able to keep any money you'll get from its sale.

And finally at the same time you're told you'll have to sack your wife.

Sounds positively nightmarish, but that's exactly what's happened to the Tyne Bridge MP David Clelland.

The one concession at least is that he has five years to divest himself of his flat and his wife (only as secretary mind).

Perhaps you can understand why he's feeling a bit sore even if you might not be weeping any tears for him.

I suspect it's the intrusion of the expenses saga into his relationship with wife Brenda that particularly irks him.

That was the reason he says he bought her share of the flat out in the first place.

Mr Clelland is now disputing the request by Sir Thomas Legg to pay the money back.

But you can read in his submission to Sir Christpher Kelly's inquiry into expenses just what he feels about the decision to stop MPs' spouses working for them.

Others are also unhappy.

Sedgefield MP Phil Wilson employs his partner as his Parliamentary Assistant.

He says she took a big pay cut to do the job and costs far less than the non-relative he'll have to replace her with.

He accepts that this may be the price to pay for the abuse of the system by the likes of Derek Conway, but he doesn't have to be happy with it.

The expenses issue also seems to have claimed, at least in part, another casualty.

The Wansbeck MP Denis Murphy is standing down.

He says expenses are only part of the reason for his decision.

But he's another who's been asked to pay money back by Sir Thomas Legg.

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