News very recently in: the Tories have yet more reason to squirm over expenses scandals today. Today’s Newsnight - immediately preceded by Sunny Hundal on Liberal Conspiracy - revealed that Caroline Spelman paid her nanny from her parliamentary allowance.

Spelman charged for the nanny, Tina Haynes, as a secretary between May 1917 and 1998. She may run into problems on this, however, given that the nanny’s sole claim to secretarial work is that she once passed on a message from William Hague.

Newsnight made a big fuss about it: presumably they think it could bite. I’m less sure. Spelman will be asked to pay the money back, and will do so if she’s any political sense. The party will dismiss it as ancient history, a silly mistake by a new MP (hah…). At a push, Spelman will get kicked out of the shadow cabinet and sneaked back in when the fuss has died down.

And it’ll be forgotten about.

That mightn’t be true if Labour pushed the accusations a bit more. But can they? Labour’s not exactly clean when it comes to nanny related indescretions (Ahem. Mr. Blunkett, please stand up…) and expenses fiddles. They risk raising old ghosts if they keep this on the agenda too long. So they might let it conveniently die too…

What this might do is shatter Cameron’s attempts to portray the Tories as a cleaner alternative to Labour. Conway looked like a terrible isolated case a few months ago. The twat Staines’ recent revelations regarding (gah, horrible phrase there..) Conservative MEPs’ similar behaviour, and now this, bring that judgement into question. Several expenses scandals - several serious expenses scandals - have come to light in the space of a year. The Tories look less squeaky clean and more an increasingly accurate replica of New Labour.

I bet Cameron wasn’t thinking of this when he made that “heir to Blair” quip…

EDIT: And that’s the narrative shaping on the internet too. This is already up on her wikipedia entry:

On June 6, 2008, Spelman came under some controversy when it was revealed that in 1997 for one year she paid her child’s nanny, Tina Hain, from her parliamentary staffing allowance. Spelman claims that her nanny was also her constituency secretary and hence why she was paid from the public taxpayers’ purse. This latest claim comes as the Conservatives‘ Leader in Europe, Giles Chichester resigns among claims he paid money through a company of which he was a paid director for and furthermore, the Conservatives’ Chief Whip, Den Dover, was forced to resign amid claims he also paid for his family for 9 years at a cost of £750,000 for alleged secretarial and office work. Perhaps ironically, David Cameron has tasked Spelman with reviewing the use or rather misuse of parliamentary allowances by MPs and MEPs.

I wonder how long that’ll stay up.

Staines, predictably, has decried this as another example of “snouts at the trough.” The pingback on Liberal Conspiracy from Lib Dem Voice is entitled “Conservative Expenses Scandal spreads.” More may well be coming from the liberal/left blogs. And just wait for the usual “bloggertarian” rage. It’ll come…

Oh. And did I mention silence on all fronts from Iain Dale?