Suicide fear hangs over Westminster
Nadine Dorries says Westminster atmosphere is "unbearable"
Rethink welcomes government plans to improve mental health strategy. Paul Jenkins, chief executive of mental health charity Rethink, says. |  |
The Conservatives' four-month honeymoon is threatening to come crumbling down under the combined weight of the William Hague affair and allegations about Andy Coulson's role in phone hacking at the News of the World. |  |
Related Analysis and Comment
By Alex Stevenson
MPs aren't the only ones scuttling furtively around the corridors of parliament. |  |
Friday, 22, May 2009 12:40
By politics.co.uk staff
The expenses scandal has created an "unbearable" atmosphere within Westminster, Conservative MP Nadine Dorries has claimed.
The backbencher wrote on her blog that "everyone fears a suicide" and said that anyone's unexplained absence is quickly checked.
"People are constantly checking to see if others are ok. Everyone fears a suicide," she wrote.
Ms Dorries, who has faced allegations from the Telegraph newspaper of her own, added: "Hopefully the good which will come from this will be radical reform, which will prevent such a disaster ever occurring again."
The number of MPs who will not be standing for re-election continues to grow, with Ben Chapman becoming the first Labour MP to announce he would not contest the next election over the publication of expenses receipts last night.
Surveying the wreckage on BBC1's Question Time programme last night, shadow foreign secretary William Hague used the same word to describe the situation - "disaster".
He also appeared to back criminal prosecutions for the worst abusers of the system.
"It's very hard to judge individual cases without knowing all the facts about them, but the crown prosecution service and Metropolitan police will decide what to do with cases which on the face of it look like fraud," Mr Hague said.
"MPs are not above the law, we make the law but we are not above it," he continued.
His comments follow those of health minister Ben Bradshaw who said some MPs "could go to jail".
The Liberal Democrats' Treasury spokesman Vince Cable said 'flipping' second home designation, phantom mortgages and skipping capital gains tax were "hanging offences".