More Tory sleaze and hypocrisy as Iain Dale defends the not so 'honourable' gentleman...

Another day, another shock revelation in the unfolding scandal of disgraced Tory MP Derek Conway...Thursday's Daily Mail claims it has uncovered secret documents which show that a close friend of one of Mr Conway's sons was also on the MP's payroll - as well as both his sons and his wife.

A couple of days ago when the story first broke, Tory blogger Iain Dale declined to comment on the plight of his friend Derek Conway.

Fair enough. But today, on news that the 'honourable gentleman' is to step down at the next General Election (before he can be deselected), Iain Dale has lambasted 'the baying mob' who attacked Derek Conway.

Iain says:

'Whatever Derek did or did not do he did not deserve some of the comments that have been thrown his way...'

Poppycock.

Let's be clear what Mr Conway did: he wrongly dipped into the public purse to pay his son more than £40,000 in taxpayer's cash.

The new allegations which have emerged regarding thousands of pounds in taxpayers cash handed to his other son, payments to his wife and now cash for a close friend of one of his sons, all warrant further investigation.

(By the way, I totally condemn the Mail's disgraceful fixation on the alleged sexual orientation of any of those involved. It's totally irrelevant to the core issue of misuse of public funds).

For Iain Dale to portray Derek Conway as a victim of a baying mob demonstrates that he is allowing his judgement to be seriously clouded by his friendship.

There's more than a touch of hypocrisy in Iain Dale's whinge about 'the baying mob'.

Only a few days ago, Iain was quite happy to personally lead 'the baying mob' attacking Peter Hain for late reporting of private donations to fund an internal Labour Party election.

A tale of two MPs: one loses his job and faces a police investigation, the other gets a holiday...

A few days ago, a senior Labour MP apologised for late reporting of thousands of pounds in private donations which he received to fund his bid to win an internal Labour Party election. There was no suggestion of fraud or that the money was used illegally or of misuse of public funds.

Peter Hain blamed an administrative error for reporting the donations later than he should have done.

The Electoral Commission decided to call in the police and Peter Hain responded by immediately resigning as a cabinet minister…

Today, a senior Conservative MP apologised for misusing thousands of pounds of taxpayers money.

The House of Commons Standards and Privileges Committee said Derek Conway was wrong to put his son on the public payroll when he had little or no contact with his father’s office either at Parliament or in his Old Bexley and Sidcup constituency.

The Committee was astonished that young Freddie Conway seemed to have been all but invisible during the period of his employment.

That’s because he was hundreds of miles away studying for his degree at Newcastle University.

The Tory MP generously used public funds to pay his lad way over the going rate, as well as pension payments and lavish bonuses.

Mr Conway, whose previous fame seems to be as John Major's vote fixer in the Commons, is likely to face a ten-day suspension from Parliament.

So, one MP declares private donations late, loses his job and faces a criminal investigation.

The other gets caught misusing public money and gets sent on a 10-day holiday from work.

Is this justice, or am I missing something…?

There's one more very stark difference in these two cases:

Tory Leader David Cameron was first in the queue to put pressure on Peter Hain to resign.

I have yet to hear Mr Cameron announce that Derek Conway will be barred from standing as a Conservative candidate at the next general election...

UPDATE: Spot the difference: Leading Tory blogger Iain Dale was all over the Peter Hain story last week. He has yet to utter the words Derek Conway...! Same old Tories.