Sleaze taints political house

The whiff of sleaze pervaded Britain's political establishment on Sunday with both main parties suffering in opinion polls amid public anger over parliamentarians' expense accounts and donations.

The ICM poll in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper showed support for the opposition Conservative party down three points to 37 percent and that for the ruling Labour Party down one to 32 percent.

It comes days after a Conservative lawmaker was suspended from parliament and kicked out of the party after admitting using taxpayers money to pay his son for work he apparently never carried out. Reports put the figure at nearly 50,000 pounds.

Derek Conway has denied any wrongdoing and noted that many parliamentarians openly and legally employ members of their family under generous expense and allowance rules.

"I am not a crook," he was quoted in the Mail on Sunday as saying. "I am one of many MPs who employ family members. It doesn't mean there's not a job to be done or that they weren't doing it."

He said his son may have seemed invisible at the Commons but that was because he preferred to work from the family's London flat.

Standards watchdog Sir Christopher Kelly told the Observer newspaper: "The incident has added to the general feeling that there is something wrong, when the great majority of MPs go about their work with diligence and integrity."

Adding to the woes, the scandal surrounding Wendy Alexander, leader of the Labour Party in Scotland and a close ally of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, rumbled on after the Holyrood watchdog referred her to the procurator fiscal for not recording gifts to her leadership campaign in the MSPs' register of interests.

She could face a police inquiry, while she is also being investigated by the Electoral Commission over an illegal donation.

Alexander said she was acting in accordance with advice given by parliamentary authorities and has since registered the donations.

"I have always been clear that I am sure I will be cleared of any intentional wrongdoing," she told Sky News.

It was one of a string of funding and government ineptitude scandals that have dogged Brown since he took over from Tony Blair last June.

Cabinet minister Peter Hain was forced to resign after he failed to disclose more than 100,000 pounds in donations for his unsuccessful campaign last year for Labour's deputy leadership.

Illustrating the depth of public mistrust, the ICM poll showed that more than 90 percent of people expected parliamentarians to bend or break the rules on expenses and donations.