Martha Kearney's week

By Martha Kearney
Presenter, BBC Radio 4's World at One

As MPs headed off for vacations or "staycations" depending on their political sensitivities, they were hoping that whole furore over expenses would die down over the summer recess.

Alan Duncan was secretly filmed by a campaigner

But the Alan Duncan affair shows that it just takes a tiny spark to ignite the touchpaper again.

Admittedly, the quieter news agenda in August gave the story more welly - but the fact that MPs are not around has also given Mr Duncan a breathing space.

So will he survive?

Tory leader David Cameron made his irritation clear to reporters in his Oxfordshire constituency: "Alan made a bad mistake and he has acknowledged that, he has apologised and withdrawn the remarks."

Alan Duncan is the party's spokesman on Parliamentary reform so I would say his jaikit is on a shoogly hook, as the old Scottish expression has it.

People in Mr Cameron's inner circle know how potentially damaging the expenses affair could be for the party after all the efforts they have made to modernise the party.

'Angry' voters

When I mentioned this to one of his senior aides, they replied "Yes, Martha, it's fair to say that moats and duckhouses weren't part of our rebranding exercise".

In fact, they have postponed any substantial policy announcements till the autumn because they feel that voters aren't in a mood to listen.

Research by the University of Essex backs that up.

What we do not want in this country is a Parliament of political anoraks and extremely rich people Sir Patrick Cormack, Tory MP

More than 1800 voters were asked a number of questions about the expenses scandal.

More than nine out of 10 them agreed or strongly agreed that affair made them "very angry", while almost as many felt corrupt MPs should resign.

Perhaps as worrying for ALL parties was the finding that more than half of those polled believed that the scandal proved that most MPs were corrupt.

And it is hardly as if the parties can hope that voters are not aware of or do not care about the issue: only 4% of those asked said they had not heard about it, and only a few more than that thought it "wasn't that important".

'Let down'

But some Conservative MPs do agree with Alan Duncan.

The veteran Tory MP Sir Patrick Cormack told us that although Mr Duncan's comments were "unwise" he agreed restrictions on MPs' pay and perks could put people off entering Parliament because it was an "extremely expensive business".

Sir Patrick told us on Thursday's programme: "What we do not want in this country is a Parliament of political anoraks and extremely rich people."

He continued: "The fact is that being a Member of Parliament is an extremely expensive business. One is expected to give liberally to all manner of charities, one is expected to attend all manner of events, one is expected constantly to be putting one's hand into one's pocket.

"One has to recognise that and it is expensive being a Member of Parliament. It is a public service, it is a vocation and you don't go in it for the money."

Those remarks infuriated John Strafford, who chairs the Campaign for Conservative Democracy - a grassroots pressure group.

He described them as "barmy," as there were 4,000 people who wanted to become Conservative MPs.

He also told me that his members felt very let down by Mr Duncan's comments.

"He's now got a record for coming out with rather silly remarks. This is the third time it's happened and people feel very very strong about it. I mean the tragedy is he's a witty, charming, amusing, very intelligent man but he does have this streak of arrogance that occasionally comes through and he's got to learn to keep it private".

If you want to read more about the whole expenses affair, I'd heartily recommend the BBC News website's special section on the issue and also this article by Radio 4's very own Becky Milligan.