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British Culture Secretary Quits Amid Uproar Over Expenses | British Culture Secretary Quits Amid Uproar Over Expenses |
(about 9 hours later) | |
LONDON — Politicians rarely like saying sorry, and generally try to put the unpleasant business behind them as quickly as possible. But 32 seconds, it seems, is a bit too quick. | |
That was all the time Maria Miller, the culture secretary in Prime Minister David Cameron’s cabinet, took to apologize “unreservedly” last week for not cooperating fully with an investigation into her expenses. And though she repaid 5,800 pounds in excess claims, her minimalist show of contrition has now proved to be politically deadly for her, and a damaging blow for Mr. Cameron. | |
At first, he stood by Ms. Miller, calling on critics to accept her apology and repayment and “leave it there.” But the affair kept dominating newspaper headlines for days, and Ms. Miller found little support among her colleagues in Parliament, whose reputation has yet to recover fully from a big scandal in 2009 over lawmakers’ inflated expense claims. | |
So on Wednesday, a few hours before Mr. Cameron was due to face questions in the House of Commons, he accepted Ms. Miller’s resignation. | |
Ms. Miller said in a letter released by the prime minister’s office that “the present situation has become a distraction from the vital work this government is doing to turn our country around.” Mr. Cameron said in his letter of reply that he hoped Ms. Miller, who is retaining her seat in Parliament, would “be able to return to serving the government on the front bench in due course.” | |
In Parliament, Mr. Cameron seemed to acknowledge that the case could damage his Conservative Party. Public anger over parliamentary expenses is “still very raw, and it needs to be acted upon,” he told lawmakers. | |
The Conservative-leaning Daily Mail newspaper published an editorial Wednesday morning, before the resignation, describing the affair as a “slow-motion car crash” for Mr. Cameron, born of the failure of the British political elite to understand how toxic the 2009 expenses scandal was “or how taxpayers’ anger continues to simmer, five years on.” | |
Ed Miliband, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, said Ms. Miller had given a “perfunctory and inadequate apology” and had resigned “not because of her bad conduct, but because of her bad press.” | |
It did not help that the first inquiry into Ms. Miller’s expenses said that, under one interpretation of the relevant rules, she had overclaimed a total of £45,000, about $75,000. The ultimate arbiter in the case, the House of Commons Committee on Standards, applied the rules less strictly and said she only needed to repay £5,800; it also cleared her of accusations that she had financed a home for her parents with public funds. But it criticized her for supplying “incomplete documentation and fragmentary information.” | |
Ms. Miller said she had inadvertently claimed the same amount for mortgage expenses year after year even though falling interest rates had reduced her payments. | |
Her resignation gave Mr. Cameron a managerial headache, prompting a government reshuffle that reduced the number of women with full Cabinet positions to three. But her replacement as culture secretary may at least offset some of the criticism directed at Mr. Cameron for surrounding himself with people from a wealthy elite: He is Sajid Javid, the son of a bus driver. | |