A TORY Euro MP paid her husband £22,500 to help her write a 15-page leaflet on waste management, The Sun can reveal.

Caroline Jackson, 62, initially failed to declare the payment.

She then disguised the size of the payout to hubby Robert by splitting it into three and listing each part as between £0 and £10,000”.

Full story here.

The Tories’ top donor today told the News of the World how he has defected to the eurosceptic UK Independence Party.

Spread-betting millionaire Stuart Wheeler has written a cheque for £100,000 to UKIP and said he will be voting for them in the June Euro elections …

In 2000, Mr Wheeler gave the Tories £5m – their biggest single donation.

He has continued to back them since, but has become increasingly angry at leader David Cameron.

He now says he has serious doubts that Mr Cameron will carry out his promise to hold a referendum on the EU Constitutional Treaty.

British Tory leader David Cameron has been condemned as “ridiculous” for pulling his party out of the EPP-ED group.

The blistering attack, from one of his own MEPs, comes in the wake of Cameron’s decision to cut loose from parliament’s biggest political group after June’s European elections.

Caroline Jackson is so incensed by the move she says she is considering quitting the Tory party of which she has been a member since 1963.

“Pulling out of the EPP was ridiculous, is a serious mistake and I am minded to leave the party,” she said.

Jackson, who is retiring in June’s European elections, has been an MEP since 1984, making her one of the longest-serving deputies.

Meanwhile, in councillor news the BBC has the story of Thurrock Council leader Terry Hipsey quitting the Conservatives for Labour.