THE reason for the extreme anger now manifested in the public’s reaction to the expenses fiasco is that it surely represents the culmination of many years of political lies, deceit, broken promises, cheating practices and official whitewashes perpetrated by our government.

The public are unable to ignore either this final insult or the implied insult to their intelligence and goodwill.

Dodgy dossiers, non-existent WMDs, an illegal war in Iraq, new direct taxation, serial stealth taxes, the dumbing down of our education system, the catastrophic explosion in violent crime and gang culture, non sentencing of many categories of criminals through lack of prisons, the explosion of mass immigration, whitewash inquiries on major issues such as Hutton and the death of Dr Kelly and the broken manifesto promise to have a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty – all these have contributed to the loss of respect for politicians and the public’s growing reluctance to vote for anybody at all.

The only way this situation can be properly resolved is to punish guilty MPs appropriately and completely reform our Parliamentary system – stop pretending MPs are honourable and invent systems where power and remuneration are controlled by independent third parties.


KENNETH BALDWIN, Baring Road, Bournemouth