THE FANTASTIC DR FOX!!!

Dr Liam Fox, the current (watch this space!) Conservative Shadow Defence Secretary, has lost his appeal against having to repay £22,000 in expenses (The Times, Tuesday 16th March) when Sir Paul Kennedy (the former High Court judge) clearly ruled that Dr Fox had significantly over claimed on his mortgage (oops!). The less than good news for David ("Call me Dave") Cameron's not so New Conservative Party, is that they may well be forced to clarify Dr Fox's political future (if he has one?) after he has been forced to repay the greatest sum of any member of the Shadow Cabinet.

Sir Paul Kennedy dismissed Dr Fox's appeal against the Legg Review’s finding that he was overpaid after he remortgaged his flat to pay for its redecoration. “What you claimed was not recoverable under the rules then in force,” he said. The news will significantly embarrass David Cameron, who has urged senior party members to comply fully with the audit of expense claims carried out by Sir Thomas Legg. I wonder if Lord Ashcroft is beginning to wonder what he bought or was sold - the phrase 'pig in a poke' comes to mind.

In truth, you could not make this up, embarrassingly for Dave, it is the sheer scale of Dr Fox’s repayment, something that has placed him well on top of the current Shadow Cabinet repayment list, that may cause some red faces or perhaps that's a side effect of a frightfully good claret. Dr Fox, however, is not so closely followed, by the next highest repayment, £5,229, which comes from Owen Paterson, currently the Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary.

The good news for us mortals is that the fantastic Dr Fox has already repaid the money he inadvertently claimed. It was found that Dr Fox’s claims were between £2,045 and £6,004 too high each year between 2004 and 2009, and he was paid twice for service charges in 2006 and 2007. Now Dr Fox challenged the Legg Report’s finding that he was overpaid by £22,476.03 after increasing the mortgage on his London flat from £120,000 to £300,000, using most of the capital to pay for a family home in his Woodspring constituency and to refurbish his second home.

Dr Fox, claimed that he thought taking out a higher mortgage was more cost-effective for the taxpayer than claiming for all the repairs individually - I think that my financial adviser might suggest a slightly different method of saving money. Sir Paul Kennedy, however, found that the money claimed by Dr Fox was not recoverable under the rules in force until 2006, under which allowances could not be claimed on additional mortgages secured on the same property.

And these people seriously think they can run the UK?