Moats, manure and mascara. The bizarre festival of freebies inevitably overshadows our take on the last week at Westminster.
We hear from top Guardian pundits Michael White, Seumas Milne, Polly Toynbee, and Jonathan Freedland – and for once they are all absolutely agreed. The expenses scandal is the worst thing to hit parliament for a generation. And that something must be done. But what?
Nick Cohen thinks the right response will start at the grassroots level, with the deselection of sitting MPs. Jackie Ashley agrees that action is needed, and reckons the removal of the Speaker, Michael Martin, might be the best place to start.
Lifting our eyes up from the gutter, we ask whether – as the thinktank Demos claims – the time is ripe for a new liberal age. Madeleine Bunting does not think their agenda can tackle the great problems of the age – first a broken economy, and now a broken political system.
