MPs repaying public funds

IT IS no doubt tempting for MPs to believe that the public anger over their expenses claims has long since abated and that, since the Leveson Inquiry, it is journalists that are now rivalling bankers as the voters’ number one hate figures.

Indeed, this is the only explanation for the way in which so many MPs have treated the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) with cavalier disregard and even downright hostility since the independent regulator was set up nearly three years ago to bring transparency to the expenses system and place it under proper scrutiny.

So entrenched had the old, cosy system of claiming expenses become that the fundamental changes introduced by Ipsa were always going to encounter opposition. Nevertheless, the sustained attacks on its integrity indicated that far too many MPs were still unable to accept that there was anything wrong with their nakedly greedy – and, in some cases, criminal – conduct.