Mud flies as Cameron bans Derek Conway

Mud-slinging in the House of Commons reached epidemic proportions today. Following the Sunday Mirror story that Health Secretary Alan Johnson had accepted £3,000 from a proxy donor for his deputy leadership campaign, and the latest reports that Tory MP Derek Conway may have paid not one but two sons for 'research work' which no one can find much evidence of, the accusations are flying.

Just one example: Tory MP Malcolm Moss has made a formal complaint about Labour MP John Mann, accusing him of using undeclared union facilities to conduct parliamentary business, after Mann complained about 80 Conservative MPs using parliamentary dining rooms to fund-raise for their party.

Against this background, David Cameron's decision to withdraw the whip from Derek Conway - already dubbed Conman by jubilant Labour backbenchers - has taken the Tory hierarchy into deep and dark waters.

Cameron has virtually killed Conway's chances of coming back as a candidate for Old Bexley and Sidcup - Ted Heath's old seat - saying, "I never say never, but he's got a lot of road to make up..."

The trouble is, Conway is a close ally of David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary. It was Conway who first criticised Iain Duncan Smith publicly, opening the way to a leadership election which Davis, at the time, was expected to win. (In the event, Cameron beat him to it.)

Rumours are rife around Westminster that the Davis camp held a crisis meeting on Monday night to see how they might help their friend. But Davis, who likes to tell anyone he meets that he was in the SAS as a part-timer, is a stickler for abiding by the rules and so he cannot quibble with Cameron's action.

Conway appears to have few friends outside the Davis circle, but there's one man at Westminster who could happily give him a knighthood: Gordon Brown. ·