MP says Tory chairman should stand down

The Conservative Party chairman should step down while Tory election fraud allegations are investigated, says a Perthshire MP.

The SNP’s Pete Wishart said it is “unacceptable” for Lord Feldman, who is a close ally of the Prime Minister, to remain in post.

Police forces in several parts of the country are probing the Conservative Party’s spending in the run-up to last year’s general election amid claims they breached strict election spending rules.

Mr Wishart, who has asked the Metropolitan Police to investigate whether the alleged breaches were co-ordinated by party HQ, said the scale of the investigations are “simply breathtaking”.

He believes Lord Feldman should not continue while questions remain over “what he knew about the alleged disparity between candidate expenditure and the national campaign expenditure he was responsible for”.

A spokesman for the Conservative Party said: “Mr Wishart seems to be conveniently forgetting that his own party hired a helicopter to fly around individual constituencies during the general election campaign, and similarly claimed it as a part of their national return.”