Essentially the Only One

The Daily Telegraph has been running a week long exposé of British Members of Parliament and their corrupt abuse of a very opaque expense account system.

It makes for thoroughly disillusioning reading. Public money used to renovate houses that are then sold for a tidy - and often untaxed profit - as well as claims for, amongst other things, cleaning a moat around a country estate, and for mortgage payments on a house that had already been paid for. Some illegal, some irresponsible, some petty. Enough, even, to taint those whose claims have been fair and honorable. The fall-out has been a wave of public revulsion, one that is likely to have unpredictable and possibly dangerous consequences - as in the election of members of the far-right and racist British National Party, currently a fringe group.

Greed knows no bounds.