Marlborough’s outspoken Tory MP Claire Perry is being taken to an employment tribunal to face an allegation of unfairly sacking by her best friend Penelope Nurick from a post on her parliamentary staff.
Mrs Nurick was one of 48-year-old Mrs Perry’s seconders when she stood as the Conservative Party candidate at the last general election and was chosen to replace the long-standing local MP Michael Ancram, one-time Tory Party chairman.
He decided to retire in 2010 after becoming the first victim in the MPs’ expenses scandal initially revealed in the Sunday Telegraph.
Now the Sunday Telegraph reports today: “The hearing, which is scheduled to take place in Bristol next month, will be particularly awkward for Perry, who will have to convince the members of the tribunal panel that her friend was not up to the role that she held for two years.”
And under the headline ‘TRIBUNAL FOR CAMERON CUTIE AFTER SHE SACKS BEST FRIEND’, the Mandrake column of Richard Eden adds: “The pair were such good chums that the graduate of Brasenose College, Oxford, had happily employed one of Nurick’s children.”
Former banker Mrs Perry, who this week blamed the “moaning minnies” of the national media for spreading gloom over the government’s mounting difficulties, is quoted as saying: “It is a very sad situation.”
“Nothing could be sadder, as we were close friends. Her son was even an intern here (in the Commons). As an MP, I have a fixed budget and it meant I could not keep her on.”
“Staff changes in my Westminster office meant that her job was absorbed within a broader policy and management job for which she did not have the skills or experience.” Mrs Nurick is known to have been the MP’s casework officer dealing personally with constituents’ problems at her constituency office in Devizes, where Mrs Nurick lives.
Mrs Perry, who is the Parliamentary Private Secretary to Philip Hammond at the Ministry of Defence, adds: “She was offered other work in my local office( in Devizes), which she declined. Mrs Nurick was very upset as a result of this decision.”
“It is a matter of huge regret that we have not been able to reach an agreement, as she was both an extremely valued employee and a friend.”
While Mrs Perry has been criticised for her occasional lewd language, she has been acclaimed for mounting the campaign to block pornographic internet and TV programmes from the computers of children – little has so far been achieved — and last week was singled out by Isabel Oakeshott, political editor of the Sunday Times, as a “wonderful” candidate for promotion in the coalition reshuffle expected in September.
Mrs Perry will be particularly annoyed by the sexist “cutie” headline on the Sunday Telegraph. On Thursday she hit back at French politicians who wolf-whistled and hooted at their own Housing Minister Cecile Duflot when she appeared wearing a summer floral dress and high heels in the French parliament.
“These miserable old blokes need to get their act together,” blasted Mrs Perry on Twitter.
Marlborough News Online has requested a statement from Mrs Perry.
