Christopher Mackie: Cameron knows pointing a finger at Labour is waste of time

AT FIRST glance, yesterday's announcement appeared to offer David Cameron an open goal as the parties gear up for a general election.

The make-up of the accused – three Labour, one Conservative – suggested the gravity of the situation could provide Mr Cameron with fertile campaigning ground, especially as commentators judged him the best leadership performer during the expenses saga.

Although it played badly in his party, Mr Cameron's willingness to don the political hairshirt and summarily sack errant Tory MPs, saw him outflank the Prime Minister on cleaning up politics.

He was first to act yesterday too, swiftly withdrawing the whip from Lord Hanningfield until the results of the criminal trial are determined.

But suggestions he might use the DPP's announcement to make political capital ahead of the election are likely to be wide of the mark.

All of the major UK parties have been reluctant to draw attention to their rivals' misdemeanours during the saga. They are canny enough to realise that the electorate is furious with all of them, regardless of political hue, and any attempt to draw attention to specific expenses claims will only serve to stoke public anger.

Mr Cameron will also be mindful that some of the most egregious claims made in this sorry episode have come from Conservative politicians. The iconic 1,645 floating duck house was a Tory claim – made by Sir Peter Viggers – as was the 2,200 paid out for clearing Douglas Hogg's moat.

Here, Alex Salmond will not be so hesitant. Having invoked the expenses review in fiery scenes at Holyrood on Thursday, he is likely to show little reluctance to use the Westminster crisis for political ends. The criminal charges will feed neatly into the SNP narrative that Westminster is a discredited institution that wastes money and is detached from the people of Scotland.

The news will certainly help local campaigning in Livingston, a constituency the SNP has their eye on, having taken the equivalent Holyrood seat in the 2007 elections. Although Jim Devine has been deselected, the sour taste of the expenses scandal will not be a hard one for the Nationalists to invoke during the Westminster campaign.

But it is the timing of the criminal trial, due to begin in London on 11 March, weeks before the anticipated start of the general election battle, that could prove most beneficial to the SNP.

Depending on the outcome, campaigning could begin in earnest at the same time as one or more Labour and Tory politicians are sent to jail. That development, you suspect, would be an absolute gift for the First Minister.