Expenses Cheats get their comeuppance
 

This bunch of sleaze merchants refused to resign but justice has now been done!

Miss Smith crashed to an embarrassing defeat in her Redditch constituency despite enlisting the last-minute support of former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The Labour MP claimed more than £116,000 over six years designating her sister's spare room in London as her main home and had to make a public apology after her husband Richard Timney claimed two porn films on her taxpayerfunded expenses.

Miss Smith fought back tears after her humiliating defeat to the Conservatives was announced.

Hers was the most high-profile of the expenses scalps, but former ministers Tony McNulty, Shahid Malik, Phil Hope, Vera Baird and Ann Keen also found themselves out of office after making controversial claims.

All of the MPs will be entitled to controversial 'golden goodbyes' worth up to £65,000 to help them adjust to life in the real world.

Former Health Minister Mr Hope, who handed back £42,000 to taxpayers after making excessive claims on his small London flat, lost his Corby seat to Tory chick-lit author Louise Bagshawe.

Mr McNulty, who used his parliamentary expenses to allow his parents to live rent-free in his constituency home, was ousted from Harrow by Tory Bob Blackman.

Communities Minister Mr Malik - who was forced to repay public money he had claimed for council tax, a 40in plasma television and a £730 massage chair - saw his 4,500 majority wiped out by the Conservatives' Simon Reevell in Dewsbury.

Mrs Keen, a former Health Minister, lost her Brentford and Isleworth seat to Conservative Mary MacLeod.

Mrs Baird, who tried to charge taxpayers for the cost of a Christmas tree and decorations, lost to Liberal Democrat Ian Swales in Redcar with a massive 22 per cent swing.

Liberal Democrat Richard Younger-Ross, forced to pay back more than £4,000 he claimed for a stereo system - was defeated by the Tories in Newton Abbot