TORY MP Sarah Wollaston has dismissed claims that she was involved in a secret meeting with Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg as 'nonsense'.
Last week's Mail On Sunday suggested that 'feisty' Dr Wollaston may be 'becoming a bigger nightmare for David Cameron than even Nadine Dorries' saying she was secretly meeting with Nick Clegg to get 'better people into politics'.
But, in response, Dr Wollaston said this week: 'It was nonsense of course. Not a secret meeting at all – I had already written about it.
'I met Nick Clegg to discuss open primaries and lobbying. My view is that we should continue to pilot the former with a lower cost option using electronic voting with, of course, a safeguard to allow people to vote in person at a hustings event or return their vote by post.
'This should be piloted for all parties for candidate selection in a number of so called safe seats where currently only a handful of people get to chose the MP.
After the meeting she tweeted: 'Thanks to Nick Clegg for being so open to discussing pilots for e-selection for open primaries. Politics should not be restricted to the few.'
Dr Wollaston wrote in the Telegraph recently that 'low public turnouts do not reflect a lack of interest in politics, but simply that most people prefer to interact from their sofa or study.
'The scale of that can be overwhelming and, to put it in context, I've received over 700 emails in the past fortnight on just two issues: Bovine TB and emissions targets.'
'Participation in politics is not withering; people are out there in force, but they are online and that is where we should be.'
She writes: 'If such a system were open to all political parties that would finally open the doors to a more representative modern democracy.'