Hollow Cameron
by Graham Davies

David Cameron has tried to present himself as a strong, decisive and virtuous leader over the issue of expenses. He has failed.

His speech yesterday included a carefully-rehearsed dose of indignation and horror that colleagues of his could possibly have acted in such an appalling way. This injection of emotion is utterly false....because Cameron has known about all this for months, or maybe even for years.

He has only reacted now because the Daily Telegraph has caught the House of Commons with its collective trousers down. He comes across, yet again, as the pompous Head Prefect puttting on an act to impress the teachers.

Can anyone believe that he really did not know what his whoop of Old Etonian chums were up to? That one of them was asking for a sympathetic attitude to his claim for household expenses because "it takes 4 hours to mow the lawn"?

Politicians have an endless capacity to disappoint. Just to emphasize this, yesterday I received a letter from the Kensington and Chelsea Conservative association. They were asking for money. I tore it up and threw it in the bin.