I've just been talking to Heydon Prowse, the guy who stitched up Alan Duncan. He told me he thought the MPs' expenses system was being abused and that he was entitled to highlight this with the two stunts he pulled – first digging a pound-shaped flowerbed in Duncan's garden, and then secretly recording Duncan talking about MPs' pay at the House of Commons. But he sounded a bit sheepish about the affair, because it turns out that he rather likes the shadow leader of the Commons.
Alan is very, very, very charming. I really liked him. He's very funny. He's a very affable ... I did not have any intention of vilifying Alan. It's just the general ethos that prevails in parliament that I wanted to show.
Prowse has put the footage up on the Don't Panic website, and, if you get the chance to watch it (the website was down several times today), you'll see that Prowse and Duncan seemed to have a very amicable chat.
At one point Duncan complimented Prowse on the "well-chosen flowers" he planted in Duncan's garden. The meeting came about because, after the garden stunt, Duncan went on TV to say that he was not taking it too seriously and that, if the pranksters got in touch, he would invite them for a drink.
Prowse took him up on the offer and he ended up in the Commons on Monday 22 June, when MPs were electing a new Speaker. Prowse had a camera in his back pocket, attached to a secret lens hidden in a button.
Given that Duncan appeared to have responded very decently to the first stunt, wasn't it a bit unfair to stitch him up a second time, I asked. Yes, Prowse admitted reluctantly. He also pointed out that when he did release the video, he did it in a "humorous" way – it's presented as spoof in nature, about the "expense-claiming MP" in his native habitat rather than as a hostile exposé.
Prowse also told me that at the height of the expenses controversy, he even started to feel sorry for some MPs – even though he was glad that details of their claims were being made public.
During the witch-hunt I was vaguely sympathetic towards some of them because it was getting pretty extreme.
On the film you can also see that Prowse asked Duncan if he was still in favour of legalising drugs. (In the 1990s Duncan wrote a book that contained a chapter arguing for legalisation, although those sections were removed when he released it in paperback.) Duncan said that he fully supported his party's policy, but then he joked about Prowse being a "dangerous man".
He was more perceptive than he realised.
