'Desperate' Cameron Attacks PM

Downing Street has branded Tory Leader David Cameron's attack on the Prime Minister over expenses prosecutions as 'desperate'.

Mr Cameron said Gordon Brown had tolerated the "disgusting sight" of MPs attempting to dodge criminal proceedings using parliamentary privilege as a defence.

He said the Conservatives would challenge current laws which protect MPs and let them "evade justice".

Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman said Mr Cameron's comments were "at best muddled and at worst downright opportunistic", given he had opposed reforms to legislation during the summer.

Three Labour MPs and one Tory peer are facing criminal charges over expenses claims made to Parliament.

Elliot Morley, David Chaytor and Jim Devine will reportedly use centuries old Parliamentary privilege law, which protects them from legal action over anything they say in the Commons.

They has been cross-party criticism of the lawyers' alleged move.

However, Ms Harman said Mr Cameron's comments ran the danger of jeopardising a fair trial.

The three MPs facing accusation, along with Lord Hanningfield - who all deny the charges - could be handed down a maximum sentence of seven years' imprisonment if found guilty.

Messrs Morley, Chaytor and Devine all had their Labour Party membership suspended today, "pending the finalisation of the legal process".

Mr Cameron is expected to ask shadow Commons leader Sir George Young to draft a new Parliamentary Privilege Act.

He claimed Mr Brown is incapable of reforming the current system.

"Gordon Brown cannot reform the institution because he is the institution: he made it," said Mr Cameron.

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg likened both his rivals to "cowboy builders".

"Listening to the two of them anyone would think they were powerless backbenchers rather than the leaders of the two parties in Parliament which have proved to be the real roadblocks to reform," he said.

"It's like a couple of cowboy builders coming back to your house to tell you how bad their workmanship is.

"If they genuinely want political change, it is in their power to deliver it. So I challenge them to cut out the speeches and the rhetoric and get on with the job."

Home Secretary Alan Johnson insisted MPs should be tried by the courts like anyone else.

"They are entitled to a fair trial and the public... would be aghast if they thought there was some special get out of jail card for Parliamentarians," he told the BBC.

(PR/GK)