Fury, resentment and a general feeling of being hard done-by is reported to be the prevailing mood amongst MPs as they reconvene after the Summer break to find brown envelopes of an unwelcome sort waiting for them.

These are the already infamous "Legg letters," the latest symbol along with duck houses, moats and mole-catchers of the expenses scandal which did so much damage to all parties earlier this year.

Written as a result of the inquiry headed by former civil servant Sir Thomas Legg, they assess the expenses claimed by each MP between 2004 and 2008 and, where anomalies have been found, they either demand repayment or clarification.

Gordon Brown is to pay back 12,415 pounds, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg 910 pounds and SNP leader Alex Salmond 700 pounds. David Cameron has been asked to provide more details about his mortgage repayments.

But three things have particularly annoyed backbenchers.

The first is that Legg has imposed  retrospective limits on various categories of expenses that the MPs themselves obviously cannot have known about at the time. He has said the maximum allowable for cleaning for example is 2,000 pounds and that for gardening 1,000 pounds, according to newspaper reports.

The second is the perception at Westminster that those MPs who made the really big claims, the ones on mortgage payments, are getting away with it. Saying "sorry" seems to be enough, as in the case of former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

And the third is that some MPs feel they have been unfairly singled out for reprisal by party leaders eager to be seen to be taking action.

Do you think they have a point? Is it time to stop harassing MPs and get on with government?

- Guy Aitchison is a contributing editor at openDemocracy and writes regularly for its UK blog, OurKingdom -

The Labour politician and intellectual Richard Crossman once described the British constitution, with a sovereign Parliament at its centre, as a “rock” against periodic “waves of popular emotion”.

As MPs reflect on the recent expenses scandal during their 82-day summer break, many will be tempted to congratulate themselves for once again weathering the storm of public outrage.

At the height of the crisis the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition were competing with each other to propose ever-more radical constitutional solutions to the catastrophic loss of trust precipitated by the Telegraph’s revelations of MPs’ shameless, and in many cases fraudulent, abuse of taxpayers’ money. Gordon Brown called for “a written constitution”, David Cameron for giving “power to the powerless” and Nick Clegg, whose party has long been calling for reform of a “rotten” Westminster system, demanded change in “100 days”.

The impulse of all three party leaders to respond to the furore with promises of democratic reform showed they understood public anger was about more than simply duck houses, moats, dry rot, and other abuses of expenses, however petty or extravagant: it was symptomatic of a much deeper disconnect between the public and politicians that has been building for years.

The problem comes from an over-centralised and antiquated British state whose monarchical constitution is totally unsuited to represent the interests of a modern pluralist society. Parliament itself is a creature of the executive that has permitted the systematic erosion of rights and freedoms under a barrage of illiberal legislation and failed to prevent disastrous decisions like the Iraq war.

Our absurdly unjust electoral system means that, when the Prime Minister exercises his royal power to call an election, the effective choice of voters is confined to two parties born out of ancient class antagonisms but now purged of ideology by party managers chasing “floating voters” in the handful of marginal constituencies that determine who wins.

Local government meanwhile lacks independence or any meaningful power with 90% of its funding coming from the centre. In these circumstances it’s no wonder the public feels alienated and cut off from the political system with so many choosing not to vote (40% in recent general elections).

But now that the two main party leaders have shown signs they understand the problem, where is the revolution we’ve been promised? Unfortunately, there’s every indication that much of what was said in the heat of the crisis was mere rhetoric aimed at appeasing angry voters until the whole thing blows over.

Cameron has quietly dropped his earlier talk of reform emphasising the victory of his party in a general election as the best solution to the democratic crisis. The comfortable victory of the Tories in the recent by-election in Norwich North will only strengthen defenders of the status quo within his party, despite the abysmal 45% turnout.

The Prime Minister, meanwhile, served up a pathetic Constitutional Reform Bill in the last few days of Parliament which makes a few tweaks to the House of Lords without taking us much further towards a democratic second chamber. There’s apparently talk from inside Number 10 of a possible referendum on the voting system at the next election, but the only alternative to first-past-the-post being muted is the unproportional AV system which would do nothing to ensure the seats a party has fairly reflects the number of votes it receives.

It’s almost impossible to feel inspired by such weak proposals for reform aimed at party advantage and offered in a controlling and calculating spirit without popular involvement. It’s clear that if we’re going to seize the political moment opened up by the expenses crisis and secure the kind of modern constitutional democracy polls consistently show voters want then we cannot rely on politicians to do this for us.

What is needed is a popular force of opinion outside Parliament demanding change at the next election. This means citizens meeting together in living rooms, pubs and town-halls across the country to discuss the kind of democracy we want before joining together independently of parties, corporate media and the formal structures of political power, to pressure parties and candidates at the next election.

In the coming weeks the Rowntree Trusts will be launching an open politics network that aims to help galvanise such a movement. It will assist citizens to organise, draw up and articulate a clear demand for change at the next election, reinforced by the involvement of thousands across the country. If it succeeds, we, the people, will exercise a moral hold over the next Parliament and make real change happen. The alternative is a return to business as usual with an angry and helpless electorate even more alienated from a political system they feel does not represent them - and politicians smug and insulated in their “rock”.

- Laurence Copeland is a professor of finance at Cardiff University Business School and a co-author of “Verdict on the Crash” published by the Institute of Economic Affairs. The opinions expressed are his own. -

The unending saga of MPs’ expenses has to be seen in perspective. Of all the dishonest things that politicians do, inflating their expenses is about the least damaging. At their worst, they lie to us whenever they think it politic to do so and knowingly favour policies which suit their own interests rather than those of the country. How can this happen? After all, in a democracy the interests of government are supposed to be aligned with those of the electorate, aren’t they?

It might work if we were all rational, but alas, we are not. Only too often, we want the best of both worlds. Nobody is offering us endless sunshine with no hosepipe bans. But there are always politicians prepared to tell us we can have low taxes without reducing government spending, longer sentences without overcrowded jails, near-total job security without high unemployment (the French are especially keen on this), and so on. Why do democratic politicians repeatedly make these promises which they know to be impossible? And why do we keep believing them, election after election, in spite of the repeated failure of politicians to deliver the impossible?

The question is as topical now as ever. In spite of their frightening levels of indebtedness, neither the UK nor the U.S. government has yet said how it proposes to pay off debts in the future – in fact, Gordon Brown is adamant that spending will carry on more or less unaffected. Yet surely voters on both sides of the Atlantic can see that at some point they will have to pay higher taxes and/or accept substantial cuts in Government spending? If so, why do politicians persist with the charade?

The answer lies, I believe, in the nature of the competitive process through which politicians appeal to the electorate. Suppose 80 percent of the electorate know that a choice has to be made – we cannot have both spending and lower taxes. If, say, half of these “informed” voters favour lower taxes and cuts in government spending if necessary, it is fair to assume they also predominantly support the right wing party (Conservative or Republican, for example). Similarly, the other informed segment of the electorate prefer higher taxes and will overwhelmingly vote Labour or Democrat.

Now it is axiomatic that a two party system is a battle for the centre ground, inhabited by the floating voter. In the example here, it is a fight for the 20 percent of the electorate who either still cling to the hope that we can have the best of both worlds or, possibly, who know we cannot, but nonetheless cannot face the decision (and who may have the same attitude to their own credit card bills). In order to capture their votes, politicians must continue to offer pipe dreams. If they can include a reassuring wink to their own side (“when the crunch comes we’ll do the right thing”), so much the better.

At some point, the process must come to an end, as more and more voters realise the truth – that neither they, nor the Government can go on borrowing indefinitely. The game is over when, either the segment of the electorate still in denial has dwindled into insignificance, or maybe when politicians risk alienating their own supporters by the patent dishonesty of their pitch. If the reports are to be believed, Prime Minister Gordon Brown thinks we are still some way from this point, while Chancellor Alistair Darling begs to differ.

– Paul Taylor is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –

“All political careers end in failure,” the late British Conservative Enoch Powell famously said. And perhaps all political cycles end in scandal.

The outcry in Britain over politicians’ expenses that has claimed ministerial scalps and threatens the survival in office of Prime Minister Gordon Brown reflects more than just anger over taxpayer-funded duck houses.

Parliamentarians have become scapegoats for a deeper malaise combining the twilight of the Labour Party’s long reign, the worst economic slump since the Great Depression and the shaming of the City of London’s financial titans.

This is not to belittle abuses of the public purse by individual lawmakers. But they do not fully explain the nervous breakdown that has gripped Britain in the last month.

Seen from abroad, many Britons seem to feel their country has been politically, financially and morally devalued. It is easier to vent frustration at MPs having their moats or tennis courts cleaned at public expense than to accept that Britain has been on a binge for a decade and faces a long, costly hangover.

Bits are falling off Gordon Brown’s fag-end government in the same way that befell John Major’s hapless last Conservative cabinet in the 1990s and James Callaghan’s washed-up minority Labour administration in the 1970s.

Parties that stay long enough in power get lazy, sleazy and accident-prone. Remember the political funding scandals that tainted the sunset years of Francois Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac in France, and of Helmut Kohl in Germany. Or the “back to basics” sex scandals and bonfire of mad cows that did for Major.

What makes the current mood in Britain particularly toxic is the cocktail of political brown-out and economic distress.

In the last 18 months, house prices have tumbled in a country where home-ownership is central to wealth. The pound has lost a quarter of its value against the euro, as Britons discover when they go abroad. Banks have been nationalised or propped up by the state. Unemployment has surged. Government debt has gone through the roof and taxes are rising.

Britons who own homes, shares and/or private pension savings are worth less and face an enormous bill for the clean-up. Many home-buyers who joined the party late have “negative equity” — they owe more in mortgage than their house is now worth. Consumers are groaning under unsustainable debts.

There is also a dawning awareness that after 25 years of deregulation and fast fortunes, Britain is going to have to do something other than financial capitalism to earn an honest living in the coming years.

Financial Times economic commentator Martin Wolf put it starkly when he wrote that the UK had “a strong comparative advantage in the world’s most irresponsible industry” and needed to diversify away from finance. The bill for rescuing banks will be comparable to the fiscal costs of a big war, he said.

Such introspection does not come easily to a proud old nation fond of lecturing foreigners, especially continental Europeans, on how to run their economies.

The French, Germans and Italians can be forgiven a smirk of “schadenfreude” (pleasure at others’ misfortune) after years of being hectored — not least by Gordon Brown — about economic reform, deregulating financial services and labour markets, privatising pensions and modernising the welfare state. But they should not feel too smug, since most are facing an even deeper recession than Britain this year.

Now that politicians have replaced bankers as public hate figures, it is safer for British party leaders to outbid each other with proposals for reforming parliament than to tell the public the ugly truth. Whoever wins the next election, most Britons will earn less, pay more tax, retire later on a smaller pension and enjoy less public spending on schools, hospitals and transport.

The bankers will cost Britons far more than the politicians. It will make the cost of removing dry rot and changing chandeliers in MPs’ second homes look like small change.
(editing by David Evans)

The shockwaves reverberating through Westminster as the MPs' expenses scandal unfolds have been compared with the "Clean Hands" bribery scandal that effectively demolished Italy's post-war political establishment in the space of a couple of years in the early 1990s.

If things are going to get that bad, the guilty politicians are going to have an uncomfortable time.

As a reporter in Rome at the time, I remember how surprise turned to anger then just as it has now as the public began to realise the sheer extent of the corruption that was helping to line the pockets of the country's leading politicians and their parties.

The morning newspapers brought fresh revelations almost daily of how the main political parties routinely demanded kickbacks in return for government contracts. There were the "golden sheets" for example in which invoices for linen and bedding were inflated to thousands of pounds, and the exorbitant demands placed on suppliers to hospitals, which caused particular anger.

People used to demonstrate in the streets wearing white gloves to show they had clean hands. They would try to scare MPs they felt were corrupt by sending them spoof versions of the "avviso," the official notice that warned potential offenders they were under investigation. The avviso itself became one of the enduring symbols of the scandal, almost like the guillotine in revolutionary France. Reproductions of it used to sell well as birthday and Christmas cards.

Another favourite amng the angry public, if any disgraced politician dared show his face his public, was to mockingly shower them with coins.

Such was the fate of one of those held to have been most deeply involved in the corruption, Socialist leader Bettino Craxi, who was forced to flee to his second home in Tunisia to escape jail in Italy. Other disgraced politicians and businessmen even took their own lives.

What was going on in Italy at that time was undoubtedly far more serious than the exploitation of MPs' expenses, but because the British have tended to be less cynical about their elected representatives, the sense of outrage has been much the same.

But before the calls for a complete shake-out of the British political establishment become so loud as to be unstoppable, it might be worth remembering, as former Labour minister Michael Meacher points out in his blog, that political vaccuums often produce surprise results.

Fringe parties, for example, can make big gains, as seems to be happening already in Britain.

And in the case of Italy, the net result of the collapse of its main parties was -- Silvio Berlusconi.