Seven Conservative politicians face sleaze probes

So says The Sun. Paul Walter has helpfully done a round-up of the latest Conservative sleaze stories in today’s papers, including more news on Alan Duncan:

A second member of David Cameron’s shadow Cabinet faces a Parliamentary sleaze investigation after it emerged that his office is secretly funded by the head of a controversial oil company…

Vitol, which was Iran’s largest petrol supplier until last year, has been prosecuted after admitting paying bribes to Saddam Hussein’s government in exchange for valuable oil contracts from the Iraqi regime. It was fined $17.5 million (£8.8 million) by an American court.

The firm was also embroiled in a deal involving the Serbian regime in the 1990s which involved kickbacks being paid to Arkan, a war criminal. [Daily Telegraph]

What’s striking is how negative the coverage is for the Conservatives even in papers such as The Sun and the Daily Telegraph.

Given the inherent newsworthiness of the stories about Conservative MEPs and both paper’s general attitude towards Europe (they don’t like it, except when choosing holiday destinations) it’s not a surprise that they are giving such prominent and negative coverage to that story.

However, it’s interesting to see that they have both also given similar coverage to the question marks over certain Conservative MPs rather than talking up their defences. That must be a worrying sign for Conservative media handlers.

UPDATE: Rather amused to notice that Conservative MP Nadine Dorries is blaming the “left wing press” on her blog for the negative coverage of the Conservatives over expenses. The Daily Telegraph and The Sun must have changed more than I realised since I last saw them in paper form.