The smell from Westminster hasn’t gone away

The smell from Westminster hasn’t gone away

MPs’ behaviour has been unforgivable. Although many are leaving, we must watch the class of 2010 with an eagle eye

It took Sir Thomas Legg to remind us that the scandal has not gone away, that the system of MPs’ expenses was indeed deeply flawed and that too many of our Honourable Members appeared to be in public life for what they could get out of it. The culture of deference claimed many casualties, chiefly the reputation of the House of Commons.

Having been elected to Parliament on an issue of trust back in 1997, I am reminded by the Legg report how much worse things are now than they were then. I wish to admire MPs. I want them to be men and women of competence and integrity. The Parliament of 2005 showed shortages of both. As far as I am concerned it cannot pass into history soon enough. It will be unmourned by all but its inmates.

I have long argued that the corruptions of politics are not occasional and particular but widespread and endemic; but I had never believed them to be practised on quite this scale. It is now known that 390 MPs, more than half the total, claimed and received public money that they are now required to pay back. It is probably unfair to conclude that more than half of them are crooks — some of the mistakes were inadvertent — but that will be the belief of many people outside the political class who do not have a taxpayers’ pot of gold to dip into to make ends meet.

Let us be clear too that these MPs are not victims but the authors of their misfortunes. They were not brought down by a press campaign. They did this to themselves. From Jacqui Smith’s bath plug all the way up to Quentin Davies’s bell tower, these were claims made by MPs on forms signed by themselves. I doubt that a Relief Fund for Distressed Members would become a popular cause for public compassion.