'They won't get our vote': Ann and Alan Keen's neighbours speak out after John Lyon's findings are released (From Richmond and Twickenham Times)

'They won't get our vote': Ann and Alan Keen's neighbours speak out after John Lyon's findings are released

5:42pm Friday 12th March 2010 in

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When Ann Keen canvasses for votes in the forthcoming election, she would be well advised to avoid the area where she should have been living for most of last year.

Ann, MP for Brentford and Isleworth, and husband Alan, MP for Feltham and Heston, rarely visited their Brentford home - their primary residence - between May 2008 and October 2009, while building work took place. Squatters even moved into the house, hanging banners out of the windows saying: "Reclaiming your taxes".

Yet they continued to claim second home allowances for the flat in Waterloo, receiving about £45,000 between the building work beginning and their return.

Yesterday, they were ordered to repay £1,500 in expenses by Parliamentary standards commissioner John Lyon, but for residents living close to their Brentford home - which they moved back into in October last year - it was a laughable sum.

Speaking to the MPs' neighbours today, it was hard not to be sceptical about their chances in the forthcoming election, with many questioning their right to stand in the first place.

More damagingly, some had become so disillusioned as a result of the expenses scandal that they were questioning the point of voting in the first place.

Stan Prince, 89, who lives in Brook Road South, said: “I've been a Labour man all my life but now I won't vote because I can't vote Tory.

"I've followed politics since the war and I've come to the conclusion that no one can get it right.”

If anything, residents had more sympathy for the squatters who lived in the boarded-up home than for the Keens.

Just as it was difficult to find anyone who had ever seen the Keens, it was just as hard to find anyone with a bad word to say about the squatters.

Sue Carlyle, 60, a hairdresser who lives just a few doors away from the Keens, said: “The squatters actually dolled it up which I thought was quite comical.

"Some neighbours further down said it got a bit rowdy but it didn't bother me up here. Can they lend me some money to do my house up?”

On the same road, others questioned the whole process by which the Keens were ordered to pay back just over £4,000.

Kim Dutterfield, 44, a childminder, said: “It's outrageous.

"There should have been an independent commission into it.

"They didn't live there for a long time so why wasn't there a compulsory purchase order on the house from the council.

"They're dreadful, I'm not voting for Labour.”

It seems it is one road which won't be top of Labour's list when it comes to hunting for votes this spring.

The Keens said this week in a statement: “We accept in full the verdict of the committee, and are grateful that the members acknowledge the strong mitigating circumstances in our case.”

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