Reuters/London

Conservative leader David Cameron yesterday said he was reopening his election candidate lists following the resignation of four of his party’s members of parliament in a scandal over expenses.

Anyone could apply to stand for the opposition party, he said, even if they were not currently a Conservative member.

“If you want to come in and if you believe in public service, if you want to help us clean up politics, if you share our values, come and be a Conservative candidate,” he told BBC TV’s Andrew Marr Show.

“We’ve got to open up the talent that is available in parliament.”

Newspaper disclosures of extravagant state-funded expense claims by MPs have angered recession-hit Britons and driven a political whirlwind through Westminster’s corridors.

The speaker of the House of Commons has resigned, a minister has stepped down, two MPs have been suspended by the ruling Labour Party and six have declared they will not run in the next election.

On Saturday senior Conservative MP Andrew MacKay announced he was standing down after Cameron called him to discuss his position.

MacKay, 59, had already quit as Cameron’s senior political advisor after confirming he and his wife Julie Kirkbride, also a Conservative MP, had claimed “second home” expense allowances on both their residences.

Manchester University Politics Lecturer Andrew Russell said Cameron’s move to extend candidacies to all-comers was designed to reinforce the message that Conservatives were open to change.

Cameron has already moved to modernise his right-leaning party by increasing the number of women and ethnic candidates.

Russell said he doubted the latest initiative would greatly increase the range of candidates.

“I wonder what the demand for it is,” he said. “Where are these hundreds of characters who would like to be MPs, who aren’t putting themselves forward for the political parties right now?”

Ian Dale from political website Conservative Home said public anger was so high that no parliamentary seat could now be considered safe.

“If there are people out there who haven’t put themselves forward before, but are inspired to do so in an environment where most people would be mad to want to go into politics, that can only be a good thing,” he told Sky News.

Polls suggest the Conservatives will oust Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labour government in a general election and bring in a new generation of lawmakers into parliament.

Popular disgust with current politicians is expected to hit local and European elections on June 4, with lower voter turnout and a move towards fringe parties predicted.