Right, wrong, or somewhere in between? I imagine that a few people who were fervently behind the Legg letters started having second thoughts when Frank Field announced his opposition to them over weekend. After all, it’s one thing when the usual, venal suspects start whining, but quite another when Field – one of the decent men* of Westminster – starts to murmur. If you haven’t read his blog post on the subject, then I’d suggest you do so here.
And it’s also worth reading through Bruce Anderson’s related article in the Independent today. We can go too far in denigrating MPs, he says: an argument which, even when you drop in caveats about how disgracefully elements of our political class have behaved, is hard to refute completely – and precisely because of the existence of decent politicians.
The good Parliamentarians – whether they’re truly that, or whether that’s just the public perception of them – are in a position to make life even more difficult for Gordon Brown right now. The involvement of people like Field makes the anti-Legg movement a little more convincing, and could rally those Labour MPs who want to take on their party leader over this. Either way, the expenses scandal keeps rumbling, ever dispiritingly, along…
* Although Guido has his doubts.
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