Clarke on Brown repayment: “It serves him right!”

A frustrated Ken Clarke, who is tussling with Sir Thomas Legg over an expenses repayment, lashed out at Gordon Brown during a chat with Lobbydog last night.

The conversation turned to Sir Thomas’ demand that the PM repay £12,000 that he’d claimed on his expenses.

Mr Clarke said: “It was Gordon’s bright idea to show he was taking decisive action and it has cost him £12,000. It serves him right.

“It’s doing terrible harm to politics and it has reignited public rage because people think MPs are now paying this money back because they‘ve stolen it – which is not the case.

“Meanwhile MPs are enraged because the rules are being changed and imposed retrospectively – the only measure that should be used is whether an expense was necessarily incurred as a result of an MP having to keep a second home.”

Meanwhile, Clarke said he was querying why Sir Thomas was asking him to repay £4,733.

“Around £1000 is for cleaning. The balance is apparently for gardening, but I can’t understand what he’s on about. I’m bewildered because I’m sure I never claimed more than £200 or £300 pounds for gardening,” he said.