Billericay: The Dame who didn't give a damn...

There are now calls for Tory leader William Hague to discipline her. The Billericay MP has dismissed the verdict as "rubbish."

How did she get into this situation? SAMUEL SMITH reports.

The latest scandal surrounding Billericay MP Teresa Gorman is yet another chapter in a parliamentary career dogged by controversy.

Her history records numerous court appearances, party feuds and parliamentary investigations.

The latest findings of the standards and privileges committee were sparked off by further accusations last autumn that Mrs Gorman had mislead the standards commissioner, Elizabeth Filkin during previous investigations.

The committee's report said the MP should have registered an interest in three bedsit properties in south London and two in Portugal.

Mrs Gorman said one of the houses was used by her business and another for her own residential purposes, although employees occasionally used them rent-free.

Later, after two former tenants agreed to give evidence to the inquiry, she said some "informal" payments had been made. Mrs Gorman also claimed that a flat in the Algarve was not rented out, but later placed an entry in the Register of Members' interests saying it was occasionally let.

Other findings include the discovery of her connections with three offshore trusts and allegations of "improperly contacting witnesses" and providing the committee with "seriously misleading" information.

The report stated: "During our inquiry we have been gravely concerned by Mrs Gorman's untruthfulness, her failures to provide the Commissioner with information, and the false accusations she has made against others.

"We regard these matters as more serious than the failures to register or declare interests which were the subject of the original complaint."

This is not the first time Mrs Gorman has run into trouble. She notoriously resists following orders, holds strong and controversial opinions and rarely resists the chance to catch a ray or two of the media glare.

Her first term of office was relatively trouble-free - but then, in 1994, her pet hate, Europe, raised its head.

She was one of eight Tory MPs to have the party whip withdrawn for fighting the Maastricht Treaty.

They all returned five months later when Prime Minister John Major offered an olive branch.

Then, in 1996, Thurrock Council took her to court for making unauthorised alterations to her Orsett country retreat which was listed by English Heritage.

Mrs Gorman and her husband of 45 years, Jim, were each fined £3,000 and ordered to pay costs - a £14,000 bill.

In 1997, she said: "It was a matter we could have settled but they were determined to pursue it. They were spending other people's money so they had nothing to lose."

Then, in 1999, parliamentary watchdog, the standards and privileges committee, received a complaint against Mrs Gorman alleging she had failed to declare all her business interests.

The committee, set up to monitor MPs behaviour, consisted of a panel of 11 MPs and a parliamentary commissioner for standards, Elizabeth Filkin, who undertook the investigation on MPs behalf.

After two-months of inquiries into Mrs Gorman's interests it was found she had failed to register her directorship and shareholding in two companies - Banta Ltd and management consultants Reamfield Ltd.

The committee also said she should have registered a house in Norwood, London, which was being used as a base for Banta Ltd.

Mrs Gorman escaped suspension but was forced to apologise to the House of Commons. She told MPs the omission was an "oversight" and she had not meant to mislead them.

She said: "The Select Committee on Standards and Privileges has investigated a complaint against me and found that my entry in the Register of Members' Interests was inadequate and incomplete.

"The omissions in my entry were due to an oversight on my part. I accept the Committee's findings.

"I make no excuses, and I offer my most sincere apologies to the House."

Later in 1999, only months after the apology, she was once again being investigated.

True blue - Teresa and Jim Gorman celebrate election victory in 1992

Rocky road for rebel Teresa

Teresa Gorman's explanation of her battering at the hands of the standards and privileges committee was typically robust - she saw it at a "political conspiracy.

"You've got to understand they've turned on me because I'm high profile," she said.

Adversity has become a trademark of the maverick MP's colourful career.

Flamboyant and outspoken, her antics are regular fodder for the press.

Since becoming an MP, this feisty right-winger has been like a hatpin in the flesh of authority, unafraid to challenge and if necessary to castigate political friend and foe alike.

When she once called in the Commons for the neutering of rapists, the word "castration" was altogether too ladylike and genteel for her tastes.

"Cut off their goolies," she stormed. It caused a corporate intake of breath at Westminster, but it hit the front pages of nearly every newspaper in the land - and many more beyond.

She once defended "enterprising" Wimbledon ticket touts as "brokers" and "risk-takers" and denounced the tennis authorities for not charging the market price.

Mrs Gorman also has an ideological passion for the humble earthworm. "They are all toiling away underground in a thoroughly desirable Thatcherite way," she once said.

They are, she explained, the free enterprise militants of the underground. "Once the worm turns, we've all had it."

She simply brushes aside those who have crossed her - until now.

Fellow MP Lembit Opik, Liberal Democrat member for Montgomeryshire, described Mrs Gorman as presenting "the grey world of politics in glorious technicolour."

He added: "I don't agree with her much of the time but there is no doubt she is one of those characters you just can't ignore.

"You can always tell when she is in the room because you can hear people laughing and gasping in equal measure."

Born in London in 1931, Teresa Moore (as christened) is the daughter of a demolition contractor and waitress.

She left school at the age of 16, went to teacher training college and taught for ten years.

She then sidestepped to London University to study zoology.

After that, with the help of husband Jim, she set up a network of small firms making teaching aids.

In her spare time, she managed to fit in four years on Westminster Council.

Having been defeated as an independent candidate for Lambeth, Streatham in 1974 she finally burst onto the national political scene in 1987 - aged 56.

The Billericay seat had fallen vacant on the eve of the General Election following the frantic resignation of Tory MP Harvey Proctor who had become embroiled in a rent boy scandal.

Mrs Gorman stepped into the breach and has held on tight to the constituency since that day. She held the seat and returned subsequent victories in 1992 and 1997 - although by then her majority stood at little over a thousand.

Malcom Buckley, chairman of Billericay Conservative Association, said he first met Mrs Gorman back in 1987 when a special meeting was called to replace Mr Proctor.

He remembered: "Even then, she struck all the members as someone who would back Billericay and she has certainly not let us down.

"She is hardworking, has always supported local people and has been prepared to back her own judgement.

"We have a history of picking candidates in Billericay who are strong and independent people - she is part of that tradition."

Central to Mrs Gorman's career has been her unwavering animosity towards Europe.

In November 1994 she had the Tory party whip withdrawn along with seven others including Southend East MP, Sir Teddy Taylor.

At the time Mrs Gorman said: "We never intended to blow the Conservative Party apart but there are times in politics when you have to make a stand."

The "rebels" were accepted back in April 1995, but Mrs Gorman has continued a strong 'save the pound' stand until the present day.

Last year she announced her intention to stand down at the next general election.

She then promptly threw her hat into the race for London Mayor, following Lord Archer's resignation.

Her controversial past, coupled with ongoing investigations by the standards and privileges committee, stood against her - Tory chiefs ensured she did not even make the shortlist.

Teresa Gorman is best summed up by an admiring opponent, Gerald Kaufman.

He once said: "She will never get to be Dame Teresa if she goes on like this. Which is a pity, because Teresa Gorman would go down in the political annals as the Dame who didn't give a damn."

Defiant - Teresa Gorman faces the press after the publication of the report

Gorman gasps

ON HER HEALTH

"I am in amazing condition. I am. I say to my husband, look at me, look at me. I am in amazing condition!"

TORY GAYS

"Of course the party is full of gay men because they've come up through public school... If you live in an ambience almost entirely male it's inevitable that you get quite a high level of sexual experiment amongst the boys..."

ON EMMA BONINO,

FORMER EU FISHERIES MINISTER

"Everytime I hear her I want to give her a slap round the ear with a wet herring."

ON FIREMEN

"It must be excruciating to spend most of your working life at a billiard table with a stick.

"A lot of the time is spent just waiting for something to happen. During that period they talk themselves into a frenzy."

ON LITERATURE

"Most politicians will bull***t you they love Jane Austen but they are just posing. I love to tell stories and I'm very good at making people laugh with my anecdotes."

ON THE MAASTRICHT TREATY

"If the House of Commons voted for Maastricht it would be like 651 turkeys voting for Christmas."

ON WILLIAM HAGUE

"He believes in nothing, stands for nothing and looks as if he hasn't grown up yet."

ON HER CURRENT PLIGHT

"I'm not going to cry into my treacle."

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.