Osborne pulls strings as Miller goes

Chancellor livid that expenses row had eclipsed news of recovery

DAVID Cameron conceded defeat in his fight to save Maria Miller yesterday after his inner circle and allies of George Osborne warned that good economic news was being eclipsed by the furore over her expenses. Mr Cameron had stubbornly stood by her for almost a week, but those close to the Chancellor were livid when a triumphant prediction from the International Monetary Fund that the UK will grow faster than any other major economy this year was overshadowed by the bitter row.

The Prime Minister was forced to admit he had underestimated the depth of ‘raw’ public anger as he finally accepted the resignation of a tearful Culture Secretary. As a result, Mr Osborne tightened his grip on the Cabinet as a key ally, Sajid Javid, was given Mrs Miller’s job and Nicky Morgan, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, was promoted.

Mrs Miller’s departure was seen as a blow to Mr Cameron’s authority, but transformed a meeting of Tory MPs last night into what one senior figure described as a ‘relief rally’.

Mrs Miller was told on Tuesday night by an ‘emissary’ that senior Tories believed she should offer to resign for the good of the party.

She then had a late-night phone call with the Prime Minister as he was returning from the

‘Very deep public concern’

state banquet for the Irish president at Windsor Castle in which it was agreed she would quit.

Labour l eader Ed Miliband accused Mr Cameron of a ‘terrible error of judgment’ in failing to sack her immediately after the publication of a report from sleaze watchdogs last week.

Mrs Miller was ordered to repay £5,800 in overclaimed mortgage expenses and found to have broken the MPs’ code of conduct in her belligerent attitude towards the independent parliamentary standards commissioner. The offence was compounded when the Culture Secretary delivered a curt 32-second apology in the Commons.

In a fractious Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, Mr Cameron insisted he had been right to stand by Mrs Miller after she was cleared of the central charge against her – that she had cheated taxpayers to fund accommodation costs for her parents. ‘If people clear themselves of a serious offence, you let them get on with their job,’ he said. ‘That is actually the right thing to do.

‘Firing someone at the first sign of trouble – that is not leadership, that is weakness.’

The Prime Minister dismissed Mr Miliband’s criticism, pointing out that the Labour leader had not called for Mrs Miller to resign, but told MPs: ‘There is still very deep public concern that is very raw about the expenses scandal.

‘The biggest lesson I learned – that anger is still very raw and it needs to be acted on.’

He said cross-party talks should take place on reform of the standards committee, which reduced the punishment recommended by the independent commissioner and led to criticism that MPs were ‘marking their own homework’.

‘We should do everything we can to show this is a good and honest Parliament, with good and hardworking people in it,’ he said.

But Mr Miliband said the Prime Minister had been the ‘last person in the country to realise her posi- tion was untenable’. He accused Mr Cameron of being ‘an apologist for unacceptable behaviour’.

A visibly emotional Mrs Miller said she took ‘full responsibility’ for the decision to resign.

‘This has been a really difficult 16 months,’ she told the BBC. ‘Because I was cleared of the central allegation made about me by a Labour Member of Parliament, I hoped that I could stay. But it has become clear to me that it has become an enormous distraction.’

She said she would give the £17,000 payoff she receives as a departing Cabinet minister to a charity in her constituency.

Mr Cameron, in his letter accepting her departure, raised eyebrows by saying he hoped she could return to the frontbench in the future.

A ComRes poll for ITV News made grim reading for the Prime Minister, with 63 per cent of voters saying he handled the affair badly.

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