Duncan apolgises after foul-mouthed expenses outburst

Tory MP Alan Duncan has issued an "unreserved" apology for foul-mouthed remarks he made about MPs' expenses. Not realising that he was being filmed by journalist Heydon Prowse when the two met at the Houses of Parliament in July, the shadow leader of the Commons said MPs were underfunded and "treated like shit".

Duncan has now said he had meant his comments as a joke, but he understands that "the last thing people want to hear is an MP whingeing about his pay and conditions". He told the BBC: "It is a huge honour to be an MP and my remarks, although meant in jest, were completely uncalled for. I apologise for them unreservedly."

But Labour cabinet minister Peter Mandelson was quick to dismiss the apology, saying that: "Alan Duncan is very fond of speaking a good game publicly but in private talking and acting quite differently, so I am not surprised he has been found out."

Duncan had agreed to meet Prowse for a drink after the latter had entered Duncan's garden without permission, cut a pound-sign-shaped hole in his lawn in which he planted flowers, and then posted a video of the stunt on the website of Don't Panic magazine.

The video was made as a protest because Duncan, said to be the UK's eighth-richest MP, had claimed almost £5,000 expenses for gardening. It became a YouTube hit at the height of the MPs' expenses scandal.

When he met Duncan at the Commons, Prowse filmed him using a hidden camera. Duncan told him the expenses scandal meant that talented people would not want to become MPs, saying: "No one who has done anything in the outside world, or is capable of doing such a thing, will ever come into this place ever again, the way we are going."

Asked why people would not want to become MPs, he said: "Basically it has been nationalised. You have to live on rations and you are treated like shit." ·