We can now look back on a week which has seen the Houses of Parliament, the very seat of our democracy exposed to its rotten core. Two Lords have been barred for bartering their ervices as lawmakers, the Speaker has been driven from his Chair, the Prime Minister assures us all that MPs 'will turn over a new leaf', and David Cameron having made a few token dismissals repays the cheque he received for the cost of removing the wisteria from his chimney.

The cry from the three main political parties is for us to let them put their house in order. Forgive me, but it is not their House it is ours. It all simply beggars belief. The fatuous responses of our elected representatives and the wringing of hands have only served to elevate this comedy of operatic proportions well above the customary TV soaps.

What is so laughable is no longer the bizarre list of expenditure and banality of their behaviour but the spectacle of the collective rush of the herd to simply write their repayment cheques hoping that this will constitute the necessary act of contrition.

We are entertained by Government Minister Hazel Blears brandishing her cheque for £11000 like a lottery winner in front of waiting reporters and cameras. Doubtless her voters in Stockport have watched enviously while wondering if there is a redundancy notice awaiting them or a repossession order in the post box. If the Nuremberg defence of 'I only acted within the rules' is allowed to succeed and we permit our MPs to repay their ill-gotten gains then what message are we sending to the ordinary criminal? The prisons will soon empty as the drugs barons and fraudsters all reach for their cheque books and hand back their yachts and Porches.

It strikes me as I suspect it does every ordinary decent citizen that not once from the Prime Minister down have we heard a single 'sorry, I was wrong, I should not have done it'. It is this total lack of hubris and remorse which characterises the contempt that our elected representatives have for all of us. The only action we all now want from them is to stand at the Bar of Popular Judgement at an immediate General Election. The ballot box is the only purgative for this pandemic. We will settle for nothing less.

David Kirwan
Prospective Independent MP for Wirral West