Mr Menzies phoned his former campaign manager, now a party volunteer, at 03:15 last December saying he was locked in a flat and needed £5,000 as a matter of “life and death”.

So prostitutes and/or cocaine then?

How many is that now? It’d be easier just to suspend the lot of them at this rate

I guess if you know you’re going to lose your seat at the next election anyway why not embezzle some campaign funds while you still can.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Mark Menzies allegedly asked his former campaign manager for money to pay “bad people” who he said had detained him overnight in a flat, the Times reports.

According to the newspaper, Mr Menzies phoned his former campaign manager, now a party volunteer, at 03:15 last December saying he was locked in a flat and needed £5,000 as a matter of “life and death”.

The sum was reportedly paid later that morning, by which time it had risen to £6,500, from the personal savings of Mr Menzies’ office manager, who was reimbursed from campaign donations, the paper said.

Mr Menzies offered to repay the funds but claimed local Tories who controlled the account the money came from said he didn’t need to, a source told the paper.

A source close to Mr Menzies disputed the claim that it had been the MP’s suggestion to use campaign funds to pay his medical bills, the paper reported.

The paper says the Conservative Party was made aware of the allegations in January, when the former campaign manager reported what had happened to the chief whip, Simon Hart.

The original article contains 465 words, the summary contains 183 words. Saved 61%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!