Date published: 2008/02/02
The BBC says:
Tory MP Derek Conway has defended parliamentary payments to his son, for which he was censured and suspended, saying: "I am not a crook."
A Commons standards committee said there was no record of Freddie, a student, doing work at Westminster in return for £40,000 of taxpayers' money.
The MP for Old Bexley and Sidcup told the Mail on Sunday: "I still believe I have done nothing wrong."
Mr Conway said his son travelled from Newcastle to help him with his MP work.
He told the paper: "I know many MPs with family members who have different names registered, so they are not so obviously spotted. Some spouses work under maiden names."
Mr Conway insisted both Freddie, 22, and elder son, Henry 25, who he employed earlier, did the work they were paid for.
"A lot of students do part-time work. He was working for his father rather than working in McDonald's," he said.
Well, indeed, "a lot of students do part-time work". But they don't generally don't get paid (anywhere near) 40000 pounds for doing so. You can understand why perhaps spouses should be allowed to work for their MP partners (for one thing, it's a good way to make sure the MP doesn't meet their next fling in the office), although this would not be tolerated in any other profession. But as for other family members, it's a different matter, and with these sons it just seems like a convenient excuse to have given them a huge amount of money courtesy of the tax payer. If only all young people were able to have a 40000 pound start in life.
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