Nadine Dorries, Nadhim Zahawi and the lessons gone unlearnt at Westminster Of recent sensational grubby stories about MPs using taxpayers" money as though it were free, like air, the two that made me crossest concern the two BadNads: number 1 being the "I-didn't-know-I-should-have-registered" Nadine Dorries. She is bold, Dorries, and normally I love a bold woman, because I'm a bit craven myself and women should learn to stand up and speak up, for themselves and for others. Dorries was famously on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! and was famously the first person in that particular round to be dropped, but most famously of all, she finally deigned to appear at the bar of the House of Commons to apologise for failing to register her earnings from the appearance. She made it clear that she didn't think she should register the earnings, because they were paid to her company Averbrook (which she owns) and not to her "personally." Thus giving the impression that money paid by ITV to your own company was of a different order entirely to money paid by the taxpayer to Ms Nadine Dorries MP, House of Commons, SW1, which of course must be transparent. She has a pretty smart head, Dorries, and I can't see how she could have believed that she needn't register earnings from telly. Why did she think she was asked to go on? Because she is pretty, young-looking and mouthy? A Liverpudlian who speaks as she finds? Partly. And partly because she is an MP, and pretty, young-looking female MPs have a much higher public profile than the 300-odd suits (whether or not they're young. Or pretty). Nadine reminds me so much of Edwina Currie - also a Scouser, and equally annoying. I think I'm crosser about her ignoring parliamentary rules than I am about the fact that at least two of her three daughters (Philippa, Jennifer, Cassandra; all as smart as their mama, with very pretty teeth) have worked as assistants at her Mid Beds constituency office at Shefford, on reported salaries of £30,000 to £45,000. That's fairly decent money for girls in their twenties working in the provinces. Nice for them, and handy for Dorries, but I laboured for years under the impression that an MP's assistants were paid very, very little, and not out of money scooped up from me and thee. I mean, I knew various MPs" wives, who didn't get salaries for answering the phone. The idea that a public job means your children get on the public payroll is weird, and I resent it to an extent that surprises me, but I don't know about you. As for BadNad2, Nadhim Zahawi MP, who had the cost of heating at his second home in Warwickshire charged to the taxpayer, my neighbour said: "What's he burning anyway, in heaven's name?" I know. My tank costs £500 a time to fill. I have to fill it twice a year and I try not to fill it three times. By - you know - leaving it off for as long as I can between March and October. Neighbour: "I don't switch mine on until November." When I saw that his claim was for £5,822.27, I realised I couldn't even type it without wanting to tear the cellophane off a pack of B&H and smoke two at once. Was I soothed by learning that BadNad2 was mortified to discover that he'd submitted the wrong bill - oops - and it was the bill for his business that he'd charged (riding school stables and the yard manager's caravan) on top of his own personal heating? He was mortified by the mistake, and apologetic, and Jesse Norman MP rode to his defence in this paper: "Yes, it was foolish in the extreme for Nadhim Zahawi MP to outsource his expense claims to his staff, and not scrutinise why they were so high. It's what people sometimes do when they're incredibly busy, but that's no excuse. So he has charged only the right bill, now, for his large constituency home. Why are we paying even that, though, me and thee? They should live in cramped wee flats in Dolphin Square, until this austerity thing eases up, no?