Membergeddon is here. It’s depressing really, here I am reduced to the status of appalled onlooker. How to bring something new to the party?

Deconstructing it, explaining that it exposes a culture of MPs being used to free money? Nah, that’s covered already. 

Express horror and outrage in a witty and clever way? I’m just not that horrified or outraged yet. The story’s not exactly a shock. 

How about veering into the realm of pure fantasty? Let’s try that: Maybe Labour supporters, after seeing what their leaders get up to, how different things are for MPs, will finally start asking questions about how people with such extravagantely generous expense accounts are supposed to relate to the ‘common working man’ that’s put them in office in the first place.

Maybe they’ll ask questions about why the moral high ground claimed by Labour doesn’t stop them taking whatever they can get from the system like MPs from any other party. How does constantly switching to a new second home in order to be able to claim yet more expenses serve the Great Socialist Cause? Do they recycle the profits they make into community projects? Do they use their wealth to help the poor? Obviously not. 

So perhaps the way to look at this is to view it as the final betrayal of their loyal supporters?

Except of course that’s not how it’s going to work. Soon it’ll be Tory and Lib Dem people on the chopping block, and this will leave the MPs themselves in the same situation they’ve always been – unable to criticise the opposite benches because of their own complicity. Even partisan bloggers won’t be immune from this.

So it falls to the public – and the anti-politics and anti-politician types to do the condemning and the criticising – which, I’m pretty sure, is the last thing any politician wants. “Us versus Them” – the worst possible relationship between ruled and their rulers.

So perhaps what I’ll do is just make my demands, as a member of the public absolutely crystal clear: Change the rules. Publish each MP’s expenses in full, unredacted – and call a general election. Let us judge for ourselves who’s been taking the piss and let us get rid of the trash. Time to clean up (and I don’t mean by claiming for your brother’s cleaner either).