I have a confession to make.
I am a political journalist who dislikes expenses stories.
Don’t get me wrong, the MPs’ expenses scandal was a remarkable piece of journalism by the Telegraph which exposed how hundreds of MPs were on the make and on the take, claiming for moat cleaning, trouser presses, duck houses and designer sofas etc.
The damage to the reputation of Westminster was akin to the damage caused to print journalism by phone hacking or to the Met Police by the Macpherson report on institutional racism.
These scandals showed how easily complacent organisations can lose sight of their moral bearings.
In all cases the innocent majority were tarred with the same brush as the undeserving minority.
This is not to say it was not right the expenses scandal was revealed.
Would I have loved to have been handed the disc that contained the incendiary information?
In the words of Ed Miliband, “hell yes”.
Though I doubt I would have had the crucial insight of the Telegraph team which was to realise much of the wrongdoing was based on flipping.
Ten years on we should accept that Parliament has cleaned up its act.
MPs’ pay and expenses are now overseen by an independent regulator, IPSA, which is responsible for setting the terms and amount of any claim.
There will, of course, be the occasional act of criminality by an individual MP which should be reported.
But it is time to stop damaging Parliament by portraying every minor misdemeanour or apparently outrageous claim as some form of major sandal.
In tonight's BBC documentary Emily Maitlis charts the line which flows from the collapse of trust in MPs which followed the expenses expose in 2009 to the vote on Brexit.
It includes an interview with Matthew Elliott, the founder of the TaxPayers’ Alliance who went on to oversee the Leave campaign, where he explains how the same messaging was used in the No to AV campaign and the EU referendum.
The TaxPayers’ Alliance is a shady organisation which refuses to name its financial backers.
It presents itself as a campaign against wasteful expenditure of public money when it appears obvious its real agenda is to advocate for a low-tax, small state Britain.
Few should be surprised that many former TPA staffers, who have infiltrated large parts of the government and the media, are among Brexit’s biggest cheerleaders.
Brexit was always a right-wing project whose ultimate goal was a deregulated economy free from EU environmental and social obligations.
Portraying Parliament as a cosy establishment club which has lost touch with its electorate was crucial to the Leave campaign’s success.
Maintaining this perception is essential to keeping the Brexit flame alive.
Every MPs’ expenses story, however petty, feeds this toxic and dangerous anti-politics culture.
The media, of which the Daily Mirror is no exception, prefers to haul a politician over the coals for claiming 6p for an item of stationery rather than salute people such as Karen Buck MP who last week saw her Bill to make homes fit for human habitation pass into law.
As a result we risk tarnishing all politicians as venal which in turn undermines our faith in parliament which in turn devalues democracy.
This is not to argue we should no longer hold MPs to account.
It is to argue we should be careful of stoking resentment against politicians, especially at a time when MPs fear for their personal safety.
This weekend the Sunday Times reported ( in a story followed by the Mirror ) that MPs are claiming (legally) 20% more in expenses than they were ten years ago.
It included the revelation that Richard Benyon MP bought a £6.80 toilet seat from Wilko.
Let us take this to its logical conclusion.
Presumably, Tory staffers in Benyon’s office should have the indignity of crouching on a broken toilet seat?
Presumably, those who think this is an outrage believe Benyon, who happens to be one of the country’s wealthiest MPs, should fund such items from his own purse?
In which case they are also arguing we return to the days when a Parliamentary career was only available to those who can afford to pay for the privilege.
Whenever an expenses story arises the common refrain from every news desk in the country is that readers will be scandalised.
Perhaps they are.
Personally, I believe readers would be more scandalised that the billionaire owners of the Telegraph (via an offshore trust) live in a Channel Islands tax haven and who, if they had paid their taxes in full over the last decade, might have contributed more to the Exchequer than the amount diddled by MPs in 2009.
And I think they would be more scandalised that we hand contracts for public services to firms with subsidies in places such as the Cayman Islands thus depriving the state of taxation which could fund schools, transport and the NHS.
We can continue to focus on MPs billing taxpayers for paper clips if we want.
The TPA will happily supply a quotation for every such story.
Every time we do we play into the hands of those who want a smaller state run by a wealthy few paying even less tax.
Or we could start focusing on real expenses scandals such as the way private firms have leeched off state contracts or how an organisation such as the TPA gets so much exposure while refusing to reveal who funds it.
