The speakerscreen

Michael Martin may be going but the expenses system needs more than a token head on the floor. It needs to be thrown out. Not tinkered with.

This moment offers both the politicians and the public an opportunity to be bold. Let us pay our MPs the wage they have been denying themselves for so long. Let us abolish the expenses system. But above all let us all take a deep breath and get some perspective. British democracy is not dying or dead. This is not the rotten Parliament, or the “moat” Parliament as one Labour MP in a moment of attempted humour dubbed it.

Parliament does not need a revolution. It needs its members to realise that expenses is the issue and deal with it head-on.