Who is really responsible for the expenses scandal? (Hint: Not MPs themselves, not really)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7206137.stm

With regard to the MPs' expenses scandal, I would just like to say, before we go any further, that I would probably be as guilty as the most grasping of them, and claim for anything and everything I am allowed to, as long as it is within the rules.

I would not of course claim for mortgages I have already redeemed, but I might have thought that if my work took me away from my husband in the evenings, then he could be kept amused watching porn movies in the home instead of going out to pick up girls or go cruising in Clapham Common.

I am sure I too would flip my homes and indulge in a little property speculation myself to get the maximum I was entitled to claim within the rules, whatever they are, and it is not clear what they are, even now.

A politician's career is a short and uncertain one, as we all know, if one does not make it to the Big Name League like ex-Presidents and ex-Prime Ministers.

A little bit of forensic moralising has now revealed that it is in fact the party leaders who are to blame, since they all refused their members a vote on the matter of their pay rises.

A deal was done with them whereby they were bought off with very flexible rules on claiming expenses.

This forced many of them to scrabble around in this undignified way for their money that they should had paid as salary.

Since our political classes are so woefully inept at even safeguarding their own interests, how can we even hope to trust them to safeguard ours?

Of course the answer is that we do not and would really like to string them up to the nearest lamp-post. We feel hatred, ridicule and contempt and they feel the full blast of our hatred, ridicule and contempt.

What are any of them doing in the way of policies to assuage us, even the so-called leaders of these small-minded faint-hearted tribes?

A big fat nothing. They are still going on about public spending and the NHS, the fools.

No, I'm afraid it is a little more than that. It will be about slaying the sacred cows that the British worship. Let us therefore have parties that would protect the sacred cows and those that would slay them.

Then maybe we can watch something resembling democracy in action.

If not, then this putative democracy of ours remains a sham. But most of us already knew that, did we not? The Chinese Communist Party has more democracy in its little finger than we do in our bloated bellies.

When Deng Xiaoping decided it might be an idea to try capitalism to see how it would go, and enough members in the only party in China were persuaded, why, that was what they actually did. It was a capitalist counter-revolution indeed, but only capable of happening without bloodshed, because the rules are clear-cut and transparent.

Now of course even the MPs do not know what the rules are, or if they know the words, they do not know the meaning of them or what is expected of them. Nor are they told. Nor do they ask.

The Chinese at least have the best and brightest leading them, while the British make a policy of having the most incompetent and cowardly time-servers in the land in charge of the ship of state.

Perhaps every civilisation has a death wish. It is collectively expressed often by action (such as starting dishonourable and ruinous wars), and just as often by inaction and apathy.