I just wonder why Sultan Qaboos, the Sultan of Oman, showers Alan Duncan with ‘glittering gifts’? – Mark
MAIL ONLINE: With the first hints of autumn in the air, the sound of weary gardeners breathing a sigh of relief echoes across Britain.
But for MP Alan Duncan an aching back and calloused hands are unlikely to be high on his list of immediate problems.
For while his four-bedroom constituency home is surrounded by an acre of beautifully-tended gardens, their appearance isn't entirely down to his hard graft.
'I spend a fortune on my garden in Rutland,' he boasted last year, explaining that it is a place 'where you will never see a weed'.
What British taxpayers now know is that the pristine flower-beds and carefully kept lawns owe almost as much to them as to the 52-year-old Tory high-flyer.
Earlier this year, leaked expenses revealed that Mr Duncan had claimed in excess of £4,000 over three years to maintain his garden.
This sum included the costs of a £6-an-hour gardener who, at times, was pocketing more than £350-a-week.
Then there were the running costs of Mr Duncan's ride-on lawn-mower - a £598 service and a £49 bill for puncture repair - not to forget the £1.60 price of a bag of nails.
Mr Duncan tried to put through even more, a bill of £3,194.50 for the period between July 2006 and March 2007 being presented to the House of Commons fees office.
It declined to pay, pointing out that the sum in question 'may not be necessarily an appropriate use of public funds'.
In all, Mr Duncan claimed £127,658 over six years under second home allowances, £126 short of the maximum.
While agreeing to pay back some £5,000 he stopped short of admitting any wrongdoing, saying: 'This is not guilt. This is a voluntary act.'
Amid the ensuing furore over moats and duck islands and 'flipped' second homes, as far as Mr Duncan was concerned that might just about have been that.
Until, that is, the multi-millionaire former oil-trader single-handedly reignited the public's ire by bemoaning the lot of a modern day MP.
Covertly recorded on camera, the Shadow Leader of the House was heard to complain that MPs were being treated like 's***' and forced to live on 'rations' in the wake of the expenses scandal.
Again the silver-tongued, bouffanthaired [sic] MP apologized. And again he sloped away hoping it would all blow over.But, on Monday, David Cameron finally acted against Mr Duncan, moving him from the Shadow Cabinet to become justice spokesman with responsibility for prisons.
Critics complain that this demotion is little more than a slap on the wrist and that Mr Duncan may yet return to frontline politics as a Government minister.
'He is a very experienced politician who still has a lot to give and hopes that he will get another chance to prove this in the future,' a close friend told me.
If he does, then it would do well to remember just how that 'experience' was gained.
His views on money owe much to the fact that by the age of 30 he was already a wealthy man, once describing £1 million as 'not going very far'.
As for his £65,000-a-year salary as a frontbench MP, that was also clearly insufficient - until recently Mr Duncan pulled in an extra £90,000-odd from directorships.
His expertise is in trading oil, a line of work that has seen him linked to a number of characters mired in financial scandals.
Then there are his property interests. These include his £1 million-plus London home, his beautifully appointed constituency home and a third property that he rents out next to his own.
He bought it for £140,000 in a highly unusual transaction 15 years ago - more of which later. It is now worth at least five times that sum.
And let's not forget Mr Duncan's love of foreign travel. In the past decade he has spent a staggering 99 days living it up in luxury in Oman - the tab picked up by the Sultan's government.
Gifts from the same source include five watches, three sets of cufflinks, and a 'traditional Omani coffee pot and incense burner'.
He even had his appendix removed for free while on holiday there. No chance then, at least, of the 'rations' causing any problems as they work their way through Mr Duncan's system. Whining Tory Alan Duncan's £1m Gulf War oil 'rations' and glittering gifts from Sultan of Oman >>> Tom Rawstorne | Saturday, September 12, 2009
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