OTTAWA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper has mounted his most spirited defence in months on the Senate spending scandal, accusing Sen. Mike Duffy of playing the victim card because he was ordered to repay inappropriate expenses.

Harper has had little to say about the long-running scandal that has seen three of his Conservative appointees turfed from caucus and now involves the RCMP investigating Harper’s former chief of staff.

But after Duffy gave an incendiary speech in the Senate accusing Harper of underhanded tactics, the prime minister fired back in the House of Commons.

Conservatives are seizing upon Duffy’s claim that he was ordered to repay expenses even though he’d been assured he had done nothing wrong.

As Harper said to roars of approval from his backbench today, “You’re darn right I told him he should repay.”

Harper also said he fully endorses a motion in the Senate to expel without pay Duffy and former Conservative appointees Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau.

Harper is also emphatically denying any advance knowledge of the $90,000 cheque his chief of staff Nigel Wright gave Duffy to pay off the expense claims.