Britain's shocking expenses scandal is fuelling calls for early elections, a poll indicated yesterday as a "whistleblower" behind the embarrassing revelations said he was proud of his role.

The opinion poll, showing two thirds of Britons want elections this year rather than next, adds to pressure on embattled Prime Minister Gordon Brown as he grapples with renewed economic bad news.

In the latest revelations on lawmakers' expenses, including claims ranging from tennis court repairs to a "duck island" over the last two weeks, one was found to have spent thousands of pounds on security gates.

Opposition Conservative business spokesman Jonathan Djanogly will have to pay back £25,000 (€28,000) out of over £77,000 reportedly spent at his property, according to the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Mr Djanogly had automatic security gates installed at his house in Huntingdon, eastern England, at a cost of nearly £5,000, said the paper, whose revelations over the last 16 days have rocked British politics to the core.

In the last two weeks, the Telegraph has published the expense claims, paid for from the public purse, of over 200 of Britain's 646 lawmakers, prompting a furious reaction from commentators and the public.

The most high-profile casualty was House of Commons Speaker Michael Martin, who said this week he would quit, while several other MPs will not now stand at the next general election.

Yesterday's Telegraph also carried the first interview with John Wick, a former special forces officer who acted as middleman - or "whistleblower" as it called him - between the source of the documents and the newspaper.

"I have played my part in history. It is now for others to decide on the best way to move forward and punish those who have been exposed," Wick, a Conservative supporter, told the paper.

"I feel proud to have played my part in what the Telegraph rightly describes as 'a very British revolution'."

Mr Brown has to call an election by next June, but according to a poll in the Guardian newspaper yesterday, two-thirds of voters want him to call a general election before the end of this year.

A separate poll published by the Independent suggested voters turning away from the mainstream parties, with 80 per cent wanting independent candidates to challenge "unethical" MPs revealed by the expenses scandal.

The polls come amid renewed economic gloom, dashing recent signs of the recession bottoming out.

On Friday official data showed that Britain's economy is contracting at its sharpest pace in almost three decades amid the worst global downturn since the 1930s.

Meanwhile, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams questioned yesterday the impact the revelations were having on British public life.

"The continuing systematic humiliation of politicians itself threatens to carry a heavy price in terms of our ability to salvage some confidence in our democracy," he wrote in the Times newspaper.

Many lawmakers returning to their constituencies late Friday for a 10-day recess faced an angry reaction over the expenses scandal, highlighting the furious mood of voters.

Conservative MP Sir Peter Viggers said he was "ashamed and humiliated" over claiming expenses for a £1,600 (€1,800) "duck island" to put in his garden pond - and admitted that the ducks didn't like it anyway.

"I have made a ridiculous and grave error of judgment. I am ashamed and humiliated and I apologise... I paid for it myself and in fact it was never liked by the ducks and is now in storage," he said.