SO here we have it... a classic case of the poacher becoming gamekeeper.
Monday's election of John Bercow as Speaker of the House of Commons leaves a sour taste in the mouths of an electorate already sickened by the gravy-train saga of MPs' expenses.
Our new Speaker, committed to root-and-branch reform of Commons proce
dures, takes his high chair of office after "voluntarily" paying the taxman £6,508 (plus VAT), money which he could have been required to pay on the profit of flipping the designation of his main and second homes between London and his Buckingham constituency.
Initially, it beggars belief that Parliament couldn't have produced a new, untainted Speaker in place of one who is a divisive figure from the start, being that most of his own Conservative party didn't back him.
But the trouble is, which alternative, acceptable candidate was untainted enough by the expenses scandal to stand for this office with a clean sheet?
Margaret Beckett, for example, proved a "hanging basket" case with her gardening bills and outrageous spending on her designated second home when she was Foreign Secretary and living in a grace-and-favour apartment in London.
Churchill wrote: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."
Maybe so, but doesn't it stick in the craw when the religious head of Iran's blood-stained government is able to lecture us on political morality?
Sadly, this Westminster financial and feuding navel-gazing looks set to continue for a while yet.
All this, when the Commons' sole attention should be on getting us out of Britain's economic mess.
Local MPs Tim Loughton, Peter Bottomley and Nick Herbert are hard-working representatives in the House, but they, too, have been smeared – however unjustly – with the broad brush of public fury.
They and their colleagues have much to do to restore Parliament's reputation.
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