Expenses scandal hits Britain's "rising star"

LONDON, May 15 -- Shahid Malik, one of Labour's rising stars, who has reportedly run up the highest expenses claim of any MP said that he could "sleep easy at night".

The Justice Minister embroiled in the parliamentary expenses scandal has described the claims against him as "a non-story" and insisted he can "sleep easy at night", a Sky News report said on Friday morning.

He claimed second home allowances of 66,827 pounds (1000,000 U.S. dollars) over three years on his house in London.

The politician said "I've done nothing wrong. Of course, with hindsight I would've done things differently," adding that he was a new MP and "Everything I did I asked before I did it."

But as well as defending his claims, Malik saved plenty of ire for the newspapers he slammed as "The Torygraph" and the Conservatives, alleging that in at least three of the past seven years, the Conservative leader David Cameron claimed just as much in expenses as he did.

Speaking immediately after the Telegraph's revelations about his expenses last night, he said, "these figures are the exact same figures for every single MP more or less."

It is reported that he has been renting his main home in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, from a landlord with a conviction for letting out a property classified as "uninhabitable."

Malik's three-bedroom home in his constituency was secured at a discounted rate of less than 100 pounds (151 dollars) a week from businessman Tahir Zaman.

Telegraph said that the minister, who is seen as one of Labour's rising stars, claimed 65 pounds (97.5 dollars) for non-payment of council tax. He has agreed to pay that back.

He has also been reported to have claimed 2,600 pounds (3900 dollars) for a home cinema system -- but that was reduced by half by the Commons Fees Office.

Despite all the expenses he claimed, the Labour "rising star" insisted he had acted within the rules and his "integrity was intact."

The expense scandal claimed its first scalp on Thursday as Andrew MacKay, David Cameron's aide, quit over second home payouts.

Elliot Morley, who had been minister for nine years under Tony Blair, was suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party after The Daily Telegraph disclosed that he was paid more than 16,000 pounds(24,000 dollars) in Commons expenses for a mortgage that did not exist.

And the fallout seems to be just at its starting stage.