I think there is pretty general agreement that the system needs reforming, and presumably over the coming days the Telegraph will release more examples of dubious behaviour by MPs, including almost certainly Conservative and Lib Dem MPs.
But this doesn't detract from the seriousness of the revelations so far. Almost every minister including the prime minister has been involved in making expense claims which do not seem reasonable to almost everyone in the country. And what a PM or a minister does wrong is worse than what a backbench or opposition MP does wrong because the PM and the ministers are supposed to be setting a lead. It is hard to escape the view that PM Gordon Brown and other ministers have lost their sense of what is right and wrong. Many of them have been busy criticising bankers who have taken large pay offs despite their banks effectively going broke - and now we see that the PM and ministers are engaged in scams which are lining their pockets at the taxpayer's expense.
Of course this information needs to be in the public domain. The idea that the government is going to direct a witch hunt to persecute the leaker is frightening. As with the Damian Green affair we have the shocking position where anyone who makes public information that the Labour party does not want made public faces the full force of a police investigation. Yet Labour donors can give money to the Labour party in exchange for peerages, and the crown prosecution service is leant on to decide that there is no case to answer.
The scams operated by the PM and ministers are serious enough - but the Labour party's abuse of power in using the police to further Labour's political ends is at a whole new level of seriousness.
Look at the list we now have:
- David Kelly, UN weapons inspector, vvictimised by Labour for saying their weren't WMD in Iraq, and either killed himself as a consequence or if you believe the book by MP Norman Baker was murdered to silence him.
- Damian Green, MP, drew attention to Labour failings and was arrested in the Houses of Commons, his office searched in breach of parliamentary privledge, his home searched. No charges made.
- as yet un-named leak to the Telegraph of the expenses scams now facing arrest
- Damian McBride, known as McPoison (Wikipedia) and a seriously nasty charater, long-term special advisor to Gordon Brown, caught trying to smear Conservatives with invented stories cooked up in 10 Downing Street under Gordon Brown's nose.
- Labour donors getting peerages - but pressure believed by many to have been brought on the CPS to decide no case for prosecution
- Labour taking donations made through third parties (the David Abrahams affair) - but pressure believed by many to have been brought on the CPS to decide no case for prosecution.
- Savage on the "least wanted" list as the start of a policy to make right wing politicians illegal (I know Savage is extreme, but it is easiest to start with an extremist then start excluding more moderate right wingers).
At the very least Labour are not being seen to act properly. It is increasingly hard to hide what seems to be a stench coming from Labour.