Keith you little mischief maker, I'll mention him
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A bizarre row erupted yesterday over claims that the Government's 'Drought Minister' flouted the hosepipe ban - less than 48 hours after it was introduced.
Richard Benyon, the Tory Minister in charge of water conservation, called in police after journalists from a Sunday newspaper photographed water gushing from a hosepipe at his Elizabethan house on his 20,000-acre estate in Berkshire.
Mr Benyon, who was not at home during the incident, angrily denied anyone in his house had flouted the ban.
Instead, he accused one of the journalists of turning the tap on, in what he dismissed as a 'pathetic scam to stitch me up'.
The Environment Minister said his caretaker, who was in the house with Mr Benyon's wife Zoe and two of the couple's children, saw the paper's female photographer coming away from the tap.
He said: 'No one has used that hose pipe for a long time so it can only have been her who switched it on.'
Mr Benyon, one of the richest MPs in the Commons, also accused the paper's team of trespass and aggressive behaviour and said he had reported the incident to police
