A good old-fashioned total disagreement.

Sadly though, I don’t actually think we are that far apart.

I agree with you that we should pay MPs an appropriate wage which would certainly help sort out this allowances fiasco and I agree that mortgage interest payments could be justified as long as any later profit from the resale would be given back to the public purse.

The Telegraph too, I agree, is only publishing what would have become public knowledge soon anyway. Though I do hand it to them for a brilliant press campaign.

I think, like you, that we have got the politicians we deserve and, consequently, we should smarten up our ideas about what we want out of our democracy. By doing that I hope we will get a better calibre of politician.

Also by the way, if this has all come about as the result of media frenzy, then we have also got the press that we deserve too because nobody has forced us to read these stories or respond to them how we have.

It is good to have you back, by the way, especially with this fire in your belly.

Thanks for the comment.

These were allowances, not expenses – and all that is happening is that there is a media-led frenzy that diverts us away from the real issues.

We possibly have too few MPs, and we definitely pay them too little – and we need to get rid of ‘career politicians’. But if we don’t provide accommodation for out-of-towners (not all in the same place, that would be a security nightmare), we need to have a sensible arrangement. I don’t like the idea of paying for second homes (although maybe the interest on a second mortgage can be justified) but nobody had, at that time, put up an alternative.

And as for the pious arrogance of the guy who released the information: it was going to be public anyway. He was simply jumping the gun (and I’d guess he was well paid for it.

I think this whole shambles shows how little we think about public service and, as a result, we get the politicians we deserve.