Lack of independence was the cause, how can it also be the solution?

As the expenses crisis moves into the initial consequences phase can we be risking a good crisis going to waste?

The lack of independence at the root of the crisis lives on into the current investigations being handled by the Parliamentary Parties.

How on earth can we expect them to deliver?

The main parties have created internal processes to review member’s behaviour, something designed to give reassurance so that we will vote for them in future but it is fatally flawed and, to date, only a few, low cost, sacrificial lambs have been served to placate the public.

The public are hungry for a way of distinguishing the between the Good and the Bad but this clarity is not forthcoming.

Clarity is not in the interest of the Parties. Clarity will assist the public’s judgement and maybe we will start to focus on some whom the Parties wish to retain. Once the opportunity is missed and the token sacrifices made, true clarity will not reappear 12 months later when the electorate get their say.

The news media are now focusing on the trivial and salacious rather than the correct target for this phase, viz. the judgement processes that are now already underway. There is no public scrutiny of the processes or understanding of the criteria upon which judgements are being based.

Nadine Dorries

I feel sympathy for many MPs, even some of the guilty. In particular those whose only guilt was questionable judgement of what was reasonable as informed by custom & practice and indications from the deeply flawed fees office. However I have absolutely no sympathy for some others.

The predominant distinction between the two groups is my view of their integrity and sense of responsibility towards the taxpayer and constituents.Nadine Dorries is a particularly bad case. It is clear to me that:-

• She appears to have initially admitted submitting expense claims that were in breach of the rules.
  
  
• She refuses to face up to even the possibility that she may not be perfect. She just does not get it.
  
  
• She is very quick to blame everyone else, from her own PA to the Barclay brothers (who had her blog pulled for defamation).
  
  
• She does not hesitate to misrepresent facts to the extent of fooling only herself.
  

She heavily moderates comments on her own blog, and is now saying that she will not publish comments that try "to misinterpret the position I have laid out in a blog".

Those who follow this mendacious dingbat's behaviour will recognise that Nadine is quick to express her wishes as truths and has obviously found it inconvenient to allow people to point this out on her blog.