A major purge of veteran lawmakers is likely at Britain's next national election due to mounting public anger over the expenses scandal, opposition leader David Cameron said Sunday as a new study estimated that over 300 lawmakers could be forced out.
Cameron, who has ordered some of his Conservative Party lawmakers to quit over their excessive claims, said fresh faces are necessary to help rebuild confidence in Britain's political system. The Conservatives are far ahead of Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour Party in opinion polls and widely expected to win power at the next election, which Brown must call by June 2010.
Cameron said he will reopen lists of candidates that his party has drawn up ahead of the next election, to allow people who have not previously been involved in politics to put themselves forward. ``They may not have had anything to do with the party before. But I'm saying, if you believe in public service, if you share our values, if you want to help us clean up politics, come and be a Conservative candidate,' Cameron told the British Broadcasting Corp. Colin Rallings, director of the University of Plymouth's elections data center, told The Sunday Times newspaper that a new analysis suggested as many as 325 of Britain's 646 House of Commons lawmakers could quit or be ousted by voters as a direct result of the scandal.
Several public figures, including well-known British television presenter Esther Rantzen, already have suggested they will try to run in the next election as independent candidates to protest the scandal. In Britain, local party officials select candidates, often choosing would-be lawmakers who have no connection with the district they are seeking to represent. Some lawmakers have called for a US-style open primaries instead to select candidates. The Daily Telegraph also reported Sunday that about 200 lawmakers employ family members as staff, allowing them to charge numerous routine household expenses to taxpayers.
Days of embarrassing revelations have disclosed how legislators used public money to clean a moat, fix a tennis court, pay for an ornamental bird house, furnish lavish second homes or claim vast sums for mortgage loans. Many of the claims were legally valid but some _ like claiming mortgage payments for mortgages that were already paid off _ could spark criminal charges. Many _ but not all _ the details were to have been released in July following a freedom of information ruling that ordered lawmakers' expense receipts to be made public for the first time. But the details were published by the Telegraph after it acquired copies in advance via a former special forces soldier.
Lawmakers have faced an unprecedented public backlash, with voters especially incensed that public funds were squandered amid a deep recession that has sent the country's unemployment rate soaring. So far, the most prominent casualty has been House of Commons Speaker Michael Martin, who resigned under pressure from lawmakers who blamed their predicament on his resistance to reform the expenses law.
Although Cameron's Conservatives have been responsible for some of the most audacious expenses, including charging the public for a mole catcher and repairs to a tennis court, his party hasn't suffered in opinion polls. Several polls in recent days have shown that most Britons want Brown to call an election before the end of the year, so they can boot out the lawmakers who abused their expenses.
But Treasury chief Alistair Darling declined to say Sunday whether a 2009 election is likely. ``We will have an election when the prime minister decides,' Darling told the BBC. ``The election will be about a range of issues, whether it's about the expenses question, trust, constitutional reform or the wider economy.'