The Queen's composer, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, has disclosed that he is writing a comic opera about the MPs' expenses scandal, which may feature duck houses and moats.

Sir Peter, Master of the Queen's Music, said he was "outraged" by the disclosures in The Daily Telegraph about the expenses system and described politicians who exploited the system as a "public disgrace".

The musician was speaking at the St Magnus Festival in Orkney, where he praised the newspaper for "doing for democracy what the Government had failed to do".

He also used the occasion to lambast Gordon Brown for "wrecking" classical music education in schools.