LONDON (AFP) -- A new poll brought more gloom for Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government, as one of his junior ministers became the latest MP to become embroiled in a scandal over expenses.

After a week of embarrassing revelations about MPs’ spending habits, a YouGov survey for The Sun revealed Brown’s beleaguered Labor party has suffered badly from the affair and now has just 22 percent support.
The Conservatives were on 41 percent, suggesting a landslide if the poll is reflected in the election due by June 2010.
All parties have been caught out by the revelations, but Conservative leader David Cameron has been quick to order his MPs to repay any sums deemed unacceptable, while Brown has been criticized for a slow response.
Public anger about the scandal boiled over in a television show Thursday, when former Labor minister Margaret Beckett and Menzies Campbell, ex-leader of the Liberal Democrats, were loudly heckled by the studio audience.
On the eighth day of revelations Friday, the Daily Telegraph revealed justice minister Shahid Malik claimed thousands of pounds in public money for a second home while paying below-market rent for his main house.
The paper said the MP had claimed 66,827 pounds on his London home over three years, while paying less than 100 pounds a week on the house in his constituency that he designated his main residence.
His claims on the London flat included 2,600 pounds for a home cinema system, although parliamentary authorities only agreed to pay half, and 65 pounds for a court summons for non-payment of council tax.
Malik told the Telegraph he spent the majority of his time at his constituency home and it was right that it be registered as his main property, allowing him to claim expenses on his more expensive house in the capital.
He said the majority of his London costs were for food, insurance, council tax, energy bills, security and mortgage interest, adding: “All these costs are regarded as basic essentials in terms of the ACA (expenses system).”
In an interview with Sky News television, he dismissed the revelations about his claims as “a bit of a non-story”, saying it did not compare to allegations about other lawmakers.
YouGov interviewed 1,814 adults for the poll.