by holdthefrontpage staff
A local free newspaper found itself making national headlines yesterday after Tory MP Andrew Mackay was forced to resign over his expense claims.
Mr Mackay had told the Bracknell Forest Standard on Wednesday that there was "nothing unreasonable" in his expenses claims over the past four years.
He told reporter Mike Pyle: "I have checked through all my expense claims over the past four years and there is nothing that stands out – I am confident there is nothing unreasonable in there at all."
But party leader David Cameron took a different view and within 24 hours, Mr Mackay had been forced to quit as his parliamentary aide.
Mr Mackay, who is married to fellow Tory MP and former journalist Julie Kirkbride, claimed mortgage interest on their London home while she did the same on their constituency house in the West Midlands.
This meant the couple effectively had no main home but were claiming for two second properties, funded by the taxpayer.
Mr Cameron's office released a statement yesterday saying the MP, who has represented Bracknell and East Berkshire for the last 25 years, had quit over "unacceptable" second-home expenses claims.
The Standard's story was then mentioned on several national newspaper websites including the Daily Telegraph, The Times, Daily Mirror, Guardian and the Sun.
As the story moved on yesterday, Mr Mackay gave a further interview to the Standard explaining why he had decided to quit.
He said: "I was one of the first to volunteer to submit my claims and receipts to internal party examiners yesterday immediately after I spoke to you. They came back very late last night to say that they felt my claim was not within the bounds of what would be considered reasonable.
"Very early this morning I had a phone conversation with David Cameron where I said I wished to resign from the job, he said he thought that was the right thing to do."
Bracknell Forest Standard editor Alison Hepworth said: "The team worked really hard to make sure we filed local angles to the story as well as an interview with Mr Mackay. And as a result there has been a huge amount of traffic to our website."
Former Liverpool Daily Post and Echo journalist Chris Huhne, now MP for Eastleigh in Hampshire, has also been caught up in the expenses row. It was revealed Mr Huhne made claims for a trouser press, chocolate HobNobs, toilet roll and fluffy dusters.
He started his career as a trainee on the Post and Echo before becoming an economist in London, where he founded his own company. He has repaid the £119 cost of the trouser press.
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