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Oh dear – MPs are in the firing line again over their dealings with the new expenses police, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa).
Up to 10 are accused of using bad language, shouting and even making veiled threats, so the newspapers report this morning. You can read Nick Watt's lively account here.
No, I don't expect you to feel sorry for politicians over their expenses problems.
Many were caught misbehaving – and worse – last year, though many others were unfairly traduced, victims of arbitrary and inconsistent treatment by officials, both active and retired, who should have known better, and hounded by a media which doesn't.
No provocation excuses bad manners to young people, though one miscreant, Labour's Denis MacShane, admitted it was he who dashed out and bought a box of chocolates for an Ipsa volunteer he had upset (she had upset him, too).
Volunteer? Yes, apparently Ipsa has been using volunteers from a civil service department to front MPs' enquiries.
More senior staff also appear to have been keeping what the MPs call "secret files" on their behaviour, a version of which was leaked to the Mail on Sunday two weeks before its official release yesterday.
Leaks happen, but this one should serve as a reminder that not even parliamentary watchdogs chaired by eminent people such as Professor Sir Ian Kennedy are perfect. After all, mild-mannered Vince Cable and genteel Teresa May were among the allegedly abusive MPs exposed.
I realise I'm probably not making much progress defending the political class in front of the usual hanging jury of bloggers. So let me try another tack.
The Tory ex-minister Peter Bottomley (his wife, Virgina, got into John Major's cabinet), the veteran MP for Worthing West, is another vocal critic of Ipsa, which has cost £6m to set up and has had to pay out a reported £1m on tick since election day to tide MPs over for staff wages and office costs.
What makes Bottomley's assessment interesting is that he is a very independent backbencher, a champion of unpopular causes, quixotic and occasionally even eccentric in his views.
What follows is a slightly edited version of a letter he sent to Kennedy in July and copied to me.
drive from www.guardian.co.uk
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