MPs' expenses: an awful lot of humbug

On this evening's Question Time, we had Menzies Campbell, Margaret Beckett, Theresa May, Benedict Brogan and Steve Easterbrook. There was a general, shouty indignation within the audience about the expenses claims (generally, it has to be said, for fairly small amounts of money) but look at the panel for a moment:

Menzies Campbell: old and useless. 

Margaret Beckett: old, useless and mendacious. 

Theresa May: useless and vague. 

Benedict Brogan: disingenuous and smug. 

Steve Easterbrook: CEO of Macdonalds and smug git.  

What a shower. Hopeless, vague MPs, a smug journalist and a purveyor of mashed cow bits. Most of the programme was, of course given over to the audience shouting in a self-righteous manner. 

This whole business of MPs expenses has, of course, been eye-opening. It was certainly enlightening to discover just what our elected representatives have been claiming for, and some of it was astonishing in terms of its pure brass neck. And no matter how big the cheque Hazel Blears writes now, the point remains that she shouldn't have claimed the money in the first place. 

However, a few points need to be made:

1) MPs work very, very hard. At least most of them do. Notwithstanding the fact that many of them are hopeless, they have what amounts to two full time jobs in two different places.

2) The annual salary of an MP is £64,766, which may seem like a lot of money (it's certainly more than I make) but its considerably less than Wayne Rooney makes in a week.

3) We expect MPs to be perfect, but we'd be pretty cross if we were held to the same standards. How many journalists, for instance, would be willing to have their expenses claims scrutinised by the same standards?

4) This whole business has obscured things that actually matter. A few thousand pounds here and there is nothing compared to what's going on in Sri Lanka and Burma right now, for instance. I'm sick of news programmes dedicated to shouting at MPs. Let's get on with real life now.