December 5, 2009 - By BNP News

Disgraced expenses swindler and Thatcher spare wheel, Lord Pearson, has been forced to issue a public apology to UKIP members for trying to disband that party behind their backs.

Lord Pearson’s dramatic climb down occurred today when he issued a press statement hilariously claiming that his “word ‘disband’ has been taken out of context.”

In an interview with The Times newspaper following his election as UKIP leader, Lord Pearson unequivocally stated that he and Nigel Farage had offered to disband UKIP and join the Tories if David Cameron held a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

Because Lord Pearson is actually a rank amateur politician (whose only “elected office” before he became UKIP leader was when he was elected a prefect at Eton), he was totally unaware of the horror with which this confession would be met within his own party’s ranks.

With this simple blunder, Lord Pearson revealed to all the dupes who voted for UKIP that that party is nothing else but a front for the euro-sceptic wing of the Tory party.

In a press statement released today, he told UKIP members that “Many of you have concerns about recent media coverage, and I want to answer some of them now.”

Referring to his catastrophic confession about his true aims in The Times interview, Lord Pearson wrote: “I may have used the ‘disband’ word, and if I did it was a mistake and I shouldn’t have done so. The party will never be mine to disband. That is a matter for the members alone.”

Few UKIP members are likely to believe him as the offer to disband UKIP was made nearly six months ago and kept secret all this time.

If Lord Pearson has not stupidly confessed his plan to The Times, it would still be hidden from UKIP members, ready to be sprung on them at a moment when they least expected it.

Lord Pearson, who is an old Thatcherite of note, is also one of the House of Lord’s more extravagant expenses swindlers.

A study of his expenses revealed that he had claimed more than £100,000 in public funds on the basis that his £3.7 million house in London was his second home — while he owned a 12,000-acre estate with servants in Scotland.

He has sat in the Lords since 1990. Since 2001, the earliest year for which expenses records are available, he has told the Parliamentary authorities that his estate beside Loch Rannoch, Perthshire, is his “main home.”

This enabled him to claim about £100,000 in taxpayer-funded overnight subsistence allowances between April 2001 and June 2007 for staying at his own town house in Victoria, one mile away from Parliament in central London, where he had no mortgage to pay.

Peers can claim £174 a night, with no receipts required, to cover the cost of staying at a second home or hotel room in the capital “for the purpose of attending sittings of the House.”

After selling the flat for £3.7 million in June 2007, Lord Pearson moved to another London flat two miles away in Kennington. He paid £1.2 million for the flat, again without a mortgage. He then claimed another £15,000 in allowances on the basis of his overnight stays there, despite Lords rules specifically stating that “Members whose main residence is within Greater London cannot claim night subsistence.”

Lord Pearson has repeatedly declared in official company documents that his London home was his “usual residential address.”

His London house was also given as the address to which applicants wishing to work as a housekeeper or gardener at the Scottish estate should send their CVs, in an advert placed by Lady Pearson in The Scottish Farmer in January this year.

As well as claiming £115,683 for overnight subsistence, since 2001 Lord Pearson has claimed £56,685 in “day subsistence” allowances. Peers can claim £86.50 a day for meals, drinks and taxis while working in Westminster, with no need for receipts.

He also claimed £48,471 in travel expenses, including £10,064 for the cost of flying between Scotland and London over the last two years.