* Cabinet’s first Muslim woman caught in expense row
* Public relations disaster for her patron, PM Cameron
* Cameron already battered over unpopular tax, donor scandal
By Estelle Shirbon
LONDON, May 28 (Reuters) – Britain’s first Muslim woman to
hold a cabinet post fought back on Monday against allegations
she had made improper expense claims, the latest in a series of
public relations disasters to hit her political patron, Prime
Minister David Cameron.
Sayeeda Warsi, a lawyer of South Asian origin who describes
herself as a “Northern, working-class roots, urban, working
mum”, cuts an unusual figure in Cameron’s Conservative Party,
whose leadership is dominated by privileged white men from the
affluent south.
Cameron elevated Warsi in 2007 to the House of Lords, giving
her the title of Baroness, and when he took office in 2010 he
made her party chairman and gave her a seat at the cabinet
table. Her rise was widely interpreted as part of Cameron’s
drive to rebrand the Conservatives and broaden their appeal.
But the strategy risked backfiring after Warsi was accused
on Sunday of claiming taxpayers’ money for overnight stays in
London during visits on House of Lords business in 2008 when she
was in fact staying for free with a party colleague.
“I take these allegations very seriously,” Warsi said on
Monday in Malaysia, where she was on an official visit. “It’s
why I said right at the outset that I would fully cooperate with
any investigation,” she told the television channel ITV, denying
that she had done anything wrong.
The slightest whiff of scandal related to expenses is
political poison in Britain since a huge scandal over hundreds
of dubious claims filed by lawmakers from both main parties
dominated the news agenda for much of 2009.
“It stretches credulity that after all the expenses
scandals, and all the transparency pledges by David Cameron,
someone so senior should get into such a mess,” said the popular
Sun newspaper in a Monday editorial.
“APPROPRIATE PAYMENTS”
The Warsi expenses row comes at a terrible time for Cameron,
whose reputation has been battered over the past two months by
an unpopular tax cut for high earners, a scandal over big party
donors gaining access to him and endless embarrassing details
about his party’s courting of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.
Warsi has referred the allegations against her to the House
of Lords commissioner for standards, who will consider whether
an investigation is necessary.
The man making the allegations, medical doctor Wafik
Moustafa, was reported by several newspapers to have a grievance
against the Conservatives. The papers said he was angry over the
party’s refusal to recognise a group he had founded, the
Conservative Arab Network.
Moustafa says he let Naweed Khan, a Conservative member of
staff who later became Warsi’s special adviser, stay at his
London house for free for a period. Warsi says she stayed at the
house, as a guest of Khan, about 12 times in early 2008.
Warsi says Khan was paying rent to Moustafa and that she had
made “appropriate payments” to Khan which she had then
legitimately claimed back on expenses. Khan backs her up. But
Moustafa said he received no money from either Khan or Warsi.
Separately, Warsi has said she failed to declare rental
income on an apartment she owns in the Register of Lords’
Interests, as the rules required. Warsi said she took full
responsibility for the “oversight” and had now put things right.
Whether or not Warsi is eventually vindicated, she is likely
to be lastingly damaged by the bad publicity.
Warsi has ruffled many feathers during her career,
repeatedly causing controversy with comments on religious and
racial topics.
(Editing by Andrew Heavens)
