The Tories are facing an explosive backlash after ripping up sleaze rules to protect a former minister from suspension.
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng endured a car crash media round as he sought to defend the Government from accusations of "corruption" for saving Tory Owen Paterson from sanction.
Mr Kwarteng insisted he felt no shame over the move, which has triggered a furious outcry.
Mr Paterson, a former Environment Secretary, was found to have repeatedly used his position as an MP to promote two companies - Randox and Lynn's Country Foods - that paid him a combined £112,000 a year.
He claimed the investigation was unfairly conducted and referenced the "torturous and inadequate" investigation in his wife's suicide last year.
A report by the Commons Standards Committee found that Mr Paterson had breached four separate parts of the code of conduct, which were so serious they caused “significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole”.
But Boris Johnson ordered his MPs to block a recommended 30-day suspension for Mr Paterson.
Dozens of Tories abstained and 13 rebelled after being told to vote for an amendment to establish a Tory-led committee to review Mr Paterson's case and whether a new standards system is needed.
Shouts of shame could be heard in the Commons on Wednesday when the bid passed by a majority of 18.
Mr Kwarteng insisted he felt no "shame at all" for backing the bid in a disastrous series of interviews on Thursday.
Asked if he felt shame, he told Sky News: "I don't feel shame at all. I didn't see the vote coming in but it was an independent process, it was an independent vote of Parliament.
"I am really interested in seeing the system reformed."
He added: "It's not about the rights and wrongs of what Owen Paterson said or did or how he was paid.
"I think the process is something that we want to look at, the fact is he had no right of appeal, and we feel that in terms of Parliament people should have a right of appeal as they do in most employments throughout this country."
Mr Kwarteng gave a bizarre defence of the Government's standards after a series of damaging rows.
Asked to name a single example of something Mr Johnson had done to improve integrity in public life, he said: "Well I could do lots of things. We had a manifesto to deliver Brexit and we delivered Brexit.
"That was something we promised to do and the PM led a Government that delivered that."
Labour accused the top Tory of trying to bully the independent standards commissioner Kathryn Stone out of her job after she recommended the sanction.
Mr Kwarteng said it was "difficult to see what the future of the commissioner is, given the fact that we're reviewing the process".
Pushed on what he meant, he said said: "It's up to her to do that. I mean, it's up to anyone where they've made a judgment and people have sought to change that, to consider their position, that's a natural thing, but I'm not saying she should resign."
Shadow Commons leader Thangam Debbonaire called for the Prime Minister to "immediately distance himself from these latest attempts to poison British politics".
"Having already ripped up the rules policing MPs' behaviour to protect one of their own, it is appalling that this corrupt Government is now trying to bully the standards commissioner out of her job," the Labour MP added.
Labour leader Keir Starmer said it was "corruption", adding "there is no other word for it".
Chris Bryant, chairman of the cross-party Commons Standards Committee, branded the move a "perversion of justice".
"That is not what we do in this country, it's what they do in Russia when a friend or a foe is suddenly under the cosh in the courts," the Labour MP told the Today programme.
Plans to establish the new committee have already been plunged into chaos as Labour, the SNP and Liberal Democrats vowed to boycott it, with the SNP branding it a "kangaroo court".
