Defiant Sir Nick Winterton is standing by his outburst on first class train travel for MPs insisting: ‘I am not out of touch’.
Macclesfield’s maverick Member of Parliament is refusing to retract his comments that MPs enjoyed a ‘different status’ to passengers in standard class on trains.
Sir Nicholas, who steps down in May after 39 years in Parliament, was ridiculed and lambasted on radio phone-ins and in the national press.
But yesterday he told the Express he had actually been praised by colleagues and constituents.
"I believe what I said was right and I don’t withdraw it," he said. "I have had two or three dozen letters and emails of support for what I said and overwhelmingly, colleagues in the House have said ‘Nick you are brave’."
Many voters have accused him of being ‘out of touch’.
Sir Nick, who turns 72 next month, sparked the controversy by telling a politics magazine he was ‘infuriated’ over House of Commons proposals to makes MPs travel in standard class rather than first.
David Freear, chairman of Macclesfield Conservative Association, said he fears the latest furore will taint Sir Nicholas’s reputation among constituents.
"With the timing as it is, it will be amongst the closing impressions of his career unfortunately," he said.
Over 39 years in Parliament, Sir Nick has never back-tracked – and he has vowed to remain resolute to the end.
Under fire, he defended his claim that MPs need to travel first class on trains at taxpayers’ expense.
A spokesman for Shadow Chancellor George Osborne, who is Tatton MP and lives in Rainow, within Sir Nick’s constituency, said they were the ‘out of touch views of a soon to retire backbench MP’.
But a defiant Sir Nick said yesterday: "I have never been controlled by my party. I am Conservative but the party is a broad church.
"I am not in the least worried about the way people may or may not view me in my party. One of the reasons people are so disillusioned and don’t vote is that members of Parliament don’t speak out because there is too much party control."
He said he was not ‘put up to it’ by other MPs but added:
"I was doing it on behalf of Parliament. As far as I am concerned I can stand up for myself whatever people in the party say."
The grandfather of eight had previously criticised the £1.1 million cost of an audit of MPs’ expenses by Sir Thomas Legg, describing the former civil servant’s salary for chairing the review as ‘megabucks’.
The Tory stalwart had to repay £850 when the Legg Inquiry discovered he had been overpaid for council tax bills on his second home.
He has also been criticised for claiming parliamentary allowances with his MP wife Ann Winterton for rent of £20,000 a year on a flat they transferred to a family trust when they paid off the mortgage.
Bizarrely, Sir Nick Winterton admits he rarely travels by train.
He said he used trains about three times a year, preferring to drive to London with wife Lady Ann Winterton.
But when he did take the train, Sir Nick said he needed to travel first class to read reports, talk to businessmen and carry out the ‘serious’ work of an MP.
His views were not ‘out of touch’, he insisted.
"If it is out of touch, why hasn’t it been out of touch for the last 60 or 70 years?
"No one has queried the appropriateness of MPs travelling first class in my 40 years (as an MP).
It is extremely helpful and useful."
* SIR Nick’s comments have been met with a mixture of condemnation and sympathy by leading Macclesfield figures.
A spokesman for George Osborne – shadow chancellor Tatton MP and as a Rainow resident, one of Sir Nicholas’s constituents – said he disagrees with Sir Nick. "David Cameron has made clear his support of the reforms of Parliament and MPs expenses. These comments are the out of touch views of a soon to retire backbench MP.
"They do not in any way represent the views of David Cameron or that of the Conservative Party and should be treated as such."
David Freear, chairman of the Macclesfield Conservative Association, said: "In the dying days (of his term), it is unfortunate but should not change his overall record. The reaction to how it came across is understandable. But I don’t think he is out of touch. Nicholas probably speaks to a greater cross section of people - and tries to help those people – than any of us can contemplate."
Councillor Ainsley Arnold, leader of the CEC opposition Lib Dem Group, said: "His claim that councillors and officers regularly travel first class is surprising given the recent visit to Westminster by Cheshire East councillors.
"My Liberal Democrat colleague listened to Sir Nicholas bemoaning the state of the catering in first class, and informed him that the councillors had travelled down second class using their own rail cards without claiming for refreshments, evidently a case of selective hearing."
John Lamond, chief executive of Macclesfield Chamber of Commerce and Enterprise, said: "The irony is Sir Nicholas supports all of our business members, particularly our smaller businesses, and attends events to help them.
"He will know that they often travel in standard class."
Sir Nick had claimed all councillors and council officers travel first class by train, but Cheshire East said this was untrue.
