An expense we cannot afford

The naming and shaming of MPs who are abusing the expenses system is becoming a Sunday ritual. Each week the papers carry a fresh set of revelations; each week public cynicism about our elected representatives becomes more deeply entrenched. This would be bad enough if the MPs involved in these scandals were merely time-serving backbenchers. But the culprits include the holders of some of the great offices of state. Worst of all, the guilty seem incapable of seeing what is wrong with their presumption that the public should pay for everything from their bath plugs to their holiday homes. The real scandal is not that the Home Secretary’s husband is watching porn movies but that, in charging these films to expenses, the couple revealed that, in their house, everything is billed to the taxpayer unless otherwise stated.

These MPs are bringing democratic politics into disrepute. Their behaviour makes it all too easy to believe that all politicians are on the make, and on the take, and involved in a shoddy conspiracy against the public.