A host of historical analogies present themselves as names for the six month bashing MPs have been through: the great fear, the terror, the plague, even Jonestown. You name it. We`ll cower under it. My preference is the Great Shakedown. It`s shaken our confidence, our pockets, our standing, our respect (self and public both) and Parliamentary democracy. 

 

MPs shouldn`t expect adulation. We`re the sewer cleaners of the Constitution, a role which leaves a mess if not done properly but isn`t very important. Yet however lowly we`re now the Scottish Congregation told by their Minister that they`d rot in hell for their sins. “Forgive us. We didna ken”. “Well ye ken the noo.”

 

The shakedown has produced more books and articles than a major battle in the Second World War. Of the three here the Telegraph`s own panegyric on its victory over the traditional enemy of the media (a.k.a. Us) is the best. It`s based on the supposition that Telegraph journalists are impartial seekers after truth but it gives a straightforward account of their (small) cheque book journalism, their great scoop in unearthing sordid self-enrichment which, coupled with lax and complacent administration, produced a real scandal. Matt`s cartoons are brilliant.

 

Ann Treneman has stolen `annus horribilis` from the Queen. Her collection of articles is like the curate`s cracker: funny in parts, though she works a bit too hard for laughs she`s provided an entertaining read. Martin Bell re-tolls old familiar chimes to tell us we don`t live up to his impossibly high standards of poverty, independence and clean white suitedness. We should serve out our sentences in a prison hulk moored somewhere off Westminster and leave Parliament to Esther Rantzen and him.

 

No use being angry at the Telegraph for unearthing all this and splashing it on their front page for what seems like an eternity. They were doing their job. Nor should we be surprised at the public reaction.  This is a low pay country. Our people face unemployment and wage and pension cuts. They`re fed up of the greedy escalations of pay in the City, banks, executives, celebs, but can`t do much about it. They can about us. They pay us. They`re our masters.

 

So when we ask who was responsible for the mess, the answer is US. When it came to increasing Parliamentary pay the time was never ripe, sacrifice was always called for, so hypocritical governments told us by nudges and winks to fill our boots from the allowances. We`re deeply ambiguous about our own pay. The hair shirt brigade preach low pay. The ambiguous majority don`t want to be thought to be in it for the dosh. The smarty pants on the make were happy with tax free allowances and the fiddles the wealthy do every day.  The guilt-ridden don`t like salaries way out of line with their constituents. The wealthy few don`t care. So there was no consensus and no assessment of a rate for the job which would be justifiable on relativities or international comparisons.

 

So while top people`s went into overdrive, we fiddled on a petty scale. Those on the make took what they saw as their due. The majority stepped up claims because everyone was doing it, the Fees Office was lax and it all happened on the assumption that no-one, and particularly not constituents, would ever know. Robin Cook foresaw the disaster hurtling down the track when the expenses excreta was to hit the freedom of information fan. No-one else bothered much.

 

Now we know. After a clumsy attempt to resist the inevitable we`ve been exposed which transforms us from Honourable Members to the accused, from public servants to perps. Having too easily assumed that we were trusted, respected, possibly even loved by our constituents, we`ve discovered that many they despise us. So the abusive mail poured in. My mail was addressed to “Dear Thief” or “You crook”. Instead of inviting me to attend galas and open fetes, they demand that I retire, resign the seat, submit to an early election, or just turn myself in. Websites obligingly provided by the local media, like “This is Grimsby”, even the Times, exploded in a frenzy of denunciation which any creative BNP writing course would envy.

 

We should have expected it. Hidden in the diffident English character is a desire to pull the mighty from their thrones and a mass of simmering hatreds. John Major`s old maids cycling through the morning mist weren`t going to church. They were delivering poison pen letters. Now they can go into overdrive with emails, tweets and abuse via the burgeoning range of opportunities to pour hate and vitriol on us.

 

I went into hiding and let my overworked and underpaid staff take the brunt of the abuse. Sadly, when I sidled back, humming Shepherd`s hymn after the storm from Beethoven`s Pastorale, it was to find that Gordon, in his endearingly clumsy way, had ignited the whole thing again by the unnecessary Legg shakedown and Kelly`s comic cuts. 

 

With official enquiries you get your report by appointing the right creep and bullying him a` la Hutton. No such preparation for Gordon. He appointed two Mandarins with no knowledge of the real world and no brief to “go easy on the lads” who promptly took the Mandarin`s revenge for years of being buggered about by politicians. They joined the populist hue and cry. Kelly took reams of evidence and ignored it all. Legg disinterned the bodies. Both became an all knight torture team, condemning us to community payback in our own gardens and laundries, to conobitical cells and to travelling with wives and kids in the Guard`s Van. All three Party Leaders, and a chorus of Ministers, Whips, pundits and powers then rushed to urge us to submit, accept all their insane proposals and go gentle (and quietly) unto that good night so Leaders can look good and the troops be humbled.

 

We will, of course. We`ve no guts. We actually like doing our jobs and want to keep them. So only Ian Gibson had the integrity to refuse to tolerate the farce any longer. No-one pointed out that Ministers, Leaders and Mandarins all have a vested interest in a Parliament that can`t do its job of controlling the executive and representing the constituencies because it`s under-financed and manned by MPs who`re underpaid, overworked and generally discredited. A gutless Parliament of harassed creeps who can`t even get themselves the pay and backing necessary to do their job properly will do them nicely thank you.

 

It won`t be in the long term interests of the Great British public but short term it`s what the people seem to want. Some indeed would prefer us to work for free. Others  don`t see the need for us to go down to London at all. If we do go they`d like us to doss down with Brian Haw in an overspill tent on Parliament Square. Perhaps we should scrap elections and just put in sealed envelope bids saying how cheaply we`d do the job!

 

We`ll get the fate we deserve. That`s to stumble and bumble on, underpaid, understaffed, overworked and bogged down by trivia because no-one will face the central issue. How much should MPs be paid to straddle their two worlds of  ordinary life and Fat Cat land in London. What should be the going rate for a job that`s basically undoable and which no-one can clearly define? 

 

This row began because Leaders wouldn`t pay MPs properly. Kelly never even faced the issue. Now we`re entering an age of austerity, of cuts and pay freezes, so no government will even think about it. We`ve been too badly bashed to put up a peep for ourselves. So we`ll stagger on, underpaid and undervalued. Is the job worth doing? Floods of party hacks and na