Mike Duffy is radioactive.

The one-time Conservative cheerleader is now the poster boy for the filth which envelops the party brand.

The man holed up on Friendly Lane in Cavendish, P.E.I., has brought down one of the most powerful men in Canada, shaken the Stephen Harper government to its core and blown a hole in the confidence the increasingly skeptical Conservative base has in the party.

Nigel Wright may be gone, but Duffy is still a senator and we’re still paying his salary.

It remains to be seen how much more damage the former journalist, brought into the Senate as the Conservative bonhomme, a surefire fundraiser and vote winner, can do to his party.

He’s not doing this all by himself, though.

The Prime Minister, by remaining silent except for full-throated backing of his dubious Senate appointments, has helped spread the shrapnel from the Duffy bomb throughout his government.

This Victoria Day weekend bloodletting will do nothing to end an ongoing Senate expense scandal that, remarkably, began last winter.

The Conservatives may believe tossing bodies overboard will steady the ship, but some of these bodies have to start answering some very specific questions.

Instead our governing party has collectively lost its voice.

The “accountability” government gave us the news that Pamela Wallin, the senator so loudly backed by Harper over alleged expense account abuses, had resigned from the Conservative caucus by news release as the long weekend was beginning.

Then it pulled all its scheduled spokespersons off the Friday political talk shows.

The night before, Duffy announced his departure from the caucus, then had the RCMP remove inquiring reporters from the vicinity of his home.

Then Wright announced his resignation on a Sunday morning in the middle of the weekend, and a junior MP from Alberta, a loyal soldier named Michelle Rempel, became the face of the government on the Sunday political shows.

But Rempel spoke before Wright’s resignation. After his bombshell, no one from the government came forward to explain, apologize or defend.

Wright, an extremely intelligent man with an impeccable background, stepped down the day after his 50th birthday.

That was the proper thing to do, but it still does not explain why he would cut a $90,000 cheque to cover Duffy’s fraudulent housing claim.

The lapse in judgment was so catastrophic and out of character that it defies any explanation so far tossed out: that he was helping a friend down on his financial luck and in poor health (even though there is nothing to indicate Duffy needs money); or, as pathetically claimed by government spokespersons last week, that he was reaching into his own pocket to reimburse the poor, wronged taxpayer.

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Wright says he acted on his own, but could he possibly have acted on this without the Prime Minister’s knowledge?

Was he acting on the Prime Minister’s orders?

Did two of the shrewdest political operatives to ever land in Ottawa really believe that a handy chequebook would make a Senate spending scandal go away?

Did the government Senate leader, Marjory LeBreton, know an improper payoff was at the root of Duffy’s note from the teacher when his expenses were being audited?

We have to ask, because no one in the government is giving proper answers.

There is no paper released explaining why Wright did what he did, what the terms of the agreement with Duffy were, how and why Duffy, an alleged double dipper, was subsequently given such kid-glove treatment on an audit which fingered another disgraced former Conservative senator, Patrick Brazeau, and former Liberal senator Mac Harb.

For those keeping score at home, we now have three Conservative senators removed from caucus, one former Liberal senator fighting against paying back his housing claim, one chief of staff moved to the curb, zero proper explanations for the abuse of taxpayers’ money.

Duffy remains what he has always been, never contrite, always smug.

But he must be proud. This mess he created was uncovered largely by Robert Fife of CTV News, Duffy’s old employer.

The old Duffster would have been positively beaming, standing with Fife in the Commons foyer exposing malfeasance and misspending.

Instead he’s having the police shoo reporters from his Cavendish hideout.

Tim Harper is a national affairs writer. His column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. tharper@thestar.ca Twitter:@nutgraf1

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