Gordon Brown makes expenses vote personal

The Mole hears that the Conservative MP Sir George Young is going round Parliament saying that it is "wrong that the Prime Minister wants to turn this vote into a confidence issue".

Apparently the Tory grandee who has tabled the crunch amendment to the expenses proposals by Gordon Brown for this afternoon has heard that the Labour whips are putting it about to their own side that confidence in Brown would be shattered if he loses a vote again following Wednesday's ghurkha debacle and "you can't kick a man when he's down".

Sir George, regarded as a mild-mannered baronet and decent guy who could have been the Speaker now if he had mounted a more spirited campaign last time, is rightly upset that Brown is now turning today's vote into a personal matter.

"It's a House matter," Sir George is telling friends. "It's nothing to do with confidence in the Prime Minister."

The noble baronet is quite likely to remind Brown, if he is called by Speaker Martin, that the Prime Minister insisted the row about MPs' expenses was not a matter for him, but a matter for the House when he first saw it as an elephant trap that he wanted to avoid.

Then Brown panicked and did his barmy YouTube announcement saying that he was putting forward a unilateral plan - without consulting even his own MPs - to replace their £24,000-a year-second home allowance with a £140-a-day attendance allowance. Brown was forced to withdraw that idea, but today MPs are being asked to vote on the remainder of the Brown package, including an outright ban on outer-London MPs claiming the second homes allowance.

There would be a majority now for scrapping the second home allowance, but most MPs want the supposedly independent standards commissioner, Sir Chris Kelly to report first. They think it is mad for Brown now to force this afternoon’s vote before that report comes.

Old sages on the Labour benches are scratching their heads. "We've never been here before," said one former Cabinet minister over his coffee. "It reminds me of the last days of John Major." ·