No 10 fury as Tories get an easy ride on Conway

Gordon Brown's allies are furious that the bugging row over MP Sadiq Khan has obscured the growing crisis of confidence in the Tory ranks.

The bugging scandal has allowed David Cameron to evade further damage from Conway Family Incorporated just when Derek Conway was justifying his fiddles on expenses in the Sunday newspapers on the grounds that MPs were underpaid at £60,000 a year.

Far from being smeared with some of the mud flying around the Commons, Cameron came up smelling of roses and made Brown look flat-footed by announcing that his MPs would be expected to be completely open about employing members of their own families as their staff.

The Sadiq Khan story has also obscured the fact that recent opinion polls have shown a narrowing of the Tory lead over Labour to no more than a couple of points,

down from a 10-point gap before Christmas.

And that’s not all. Number 10 insiders are now frustrated that Cameron is facing pressure from Tories – hardly covered by the media - to go back on his promise to honour Labour's spending plans. Cameron’s line has been: "The spending plans for the next three years are really quite tight."

But John Redwood and the ConservativeHome website have joined forces to call on Cameron to go into the next election pledging a cut in public spending.

Meanwhile, Gordon Brown's day was ruined by his newly appointed Housing Minister, Caroline Flint, who decided to give the Guardian an interview in which she suggested that people living in council housing should be expected to actively seek work as a condition of their tenancy. "It's back to the days of the workhouse," was the word among angry Labout backbenchers today. Flint is expected to have to explain herself to her beleagured boss.