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UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown - Source: Reuters -
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Prime Minister Gordon Brown will unveil proposals on Wednesday to rebuild the image of parliament in the wake of the scandal over MPs' expenses, and in so doing seek to restore his own popularity.
Brown told reporters he wanted parliament to adopt his proposals within weeks. They include a regular audit of expenses, a statutory regulator and a code of conduct for politicians.
"If they do not follow that, there are criminal offences that are available to police for dealing with the problems," Brown said.
MPs will also have to abide by the legislation or potentially lose their jobs or face suspension from parliament.
Brown, battling with the worst recession since World War Two and trailing the Conservatives by up to 20% in the polls with less than a year before the next parliamentary election, has been striving to regain the initiative.
Writing in the Daily Mail, he said he would propose legislation to create an independent regulator to oversee MPs.
"Parliament badly let people down and they are rightly angry," he wrote.
"The strength of their revulsion was clearly expressed in the local and European elections earlier this month," he said referring to polls which saw Labour slump to its worst performance in a nationwide vote since 1990.
"We have learned our lesson - that without proper accountability, political institutions become vested interests, existing in a moral vacuum," he wrote.
On Monday, MPs elected moderniser John Bercow, a 46-year-old moderate Conservative, as Commons speaker.
"We have seen from the new speaker this morning that he wants to speed up that process of reform," Brown said.
"Of course, electing a younger speaker and someone who is not one of the old establishment in the House of Commons makes a difference."
