MPs and their expenses

This is really hitting the headlines now and looks to be getting bigger - and so it should.

I do not object to MPs claiming expenses - even generous ones - but I do object to them manipulating the rules for personal gain. The idea of "flipping", changing their nominations between main and second home, so that they can claim expenses for sprucing up two properties or avoiding CGT etc is well out of order - if you or I tried this to avoid some tax or other the Inland Revenue would be down on us like a ton of bricks.

Unfortunately the real fall out from all this is not so much the financial cost to the taxpayer (let's be honest, give the state of the country's finances this wouldn't even make it to the rounding let alone get lost in it) but the impact it has on the view of Parliament. We have long considered ourseleves in having a Parliament that in terms of probity was up there ahead of the rest. But the last 10 or so years has shown this as a self deception.

The last Tory administration was mired in sleaze, but it really didn't centre on the actual administration process or overly affect the standing of Parliament, hence we could vote the bad boys out and in with a new ethical bunch. This no longer seems an option, when the "ethical bunch" don't seem very ethical at all.

I am sure that there are many MPs who have very high standards and serve for the honour of serving, but when we see the kind of contempt for the tax payer that is being shown by the highest levels of Government then you begin to wonder where to turn.