"Flipping" is exactly the right expletive, judging by its current use to describe how MPs across the parties have changed the designation of their first-home/second-home properties to claim allowances for multiple properties at the taxpayers' expense.

I am appalled at the bare-faced effrontery with which so many of the "culprits" have defended their claims amounting to tens of thousands of pounds.

I can't list them all, but, as an example, I was particularly angry at the radio broadcast by Luton South MP Margaret Moran in which (almost aggressively in my opinion) she tried to justify using £20,000 of our money to cure dry rot in a Southampton property many miles from both Westminster and her constituency home.

Her excuse? That her continued, happy relationship with her supportive, Southampton-based "partner", took priority.

Money grabbers

I wish that OUR employers and the taxman took a similarly indulgent view of what we think should come first.

Unfortunately, we have something like a year to wait before we can get our voting hooks into the venal money grabbers at the next General Election.

But there is a more imminent poll on which government MPs, and those of other parties, will be focusing — the county and Euro elections on June 4.

For year after year, national and local politicians of all hues have been urging us to make our vote count in making sure we get responsible government at whatever level the election is operating.

As local elections seem in general to reflect the popularity (or otherwise) of the sitting central government, pundits forecast a dire election night for Gordon Brown's followers.

Electoral fall-out

But, then, who knows what the ultimate electoral fall-out will be after the MPs' expense sheets have been divulged?

What bounce-off effect might benefit the minor parties?

Any reform of the allowances system might bear in mind how MPs' salaries have fared since they were introduced, at £400 a year, back in 1911.

It has been estimated that if they had kept pace with average earnings since then, back-bench MPs would now earn just over £140,000, as opposed to the MPs' current £64,766.

And even based on the Lawrence Committee's pay scale recommendations introduced in 1964, they would still now be collecting a tad more than £100,000pa.

I can't see the credit-crunch-hit public backing pay rises of that magnitude.

Travelodge

A thought.

My Russian holiday last year included coach transfers using most of Moscow's main highways.

On one trip, our travel director pointed out an apartment block near the River Moskva, saying it once provided convenient in-town lodging (complete with electronic bugs?) for former Soviet politicians when working in the Red capital.

Might we not have a Travelodge within cycling distance of Westminster to provide the overnight needs of our busy MPs?

Have your say

This week's Herald readers' poll asks: Do you think there should be tougher rules on what expenses MPs can claim?

Vote yes or no in the panel to the right of the screen.

Read Worthing MPs Peter Bottomley and Tim Loughton's comments about expenses by clicking here.

Read Arundel and South Downs MP Nick Herbert's views on anti-gay bias in the national press as part of the expenses row, by clicking here.

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