The real scandal is that we always, always end up paying

The Jacqui Smith case and the grotesque sight of her husband apologising for watching porn films at the taxpayer’s expense are just the latest symptoms of a well-advanced political disease, says Rod Liddle. They take the voters for a bunch of mugs

At last the politicians have done the decent thing and called in the police over an issue which has enraged and outraged the public these last six months or so: the leaking of MPs’ expenses details to the press. One hopes that there will be a prosecution soon. Like you, I have been appalled at the regularity with which these selfless public servants have seen their privacy transgressed and have demanded something be done about it. Clearly, something is very wrong if the fat, weird-looking, superannuated husband of the Home Secretary cannot enjoy a quiet evening at home watching Anal Boutique or Lesbian Lavatory Lust at taxpayers’ expense without being subjected to ridicule and scrutiny.

Now, at last, given the outpouring of public anger, something is to be done. Sir Stuart Bell, the MP for Middlesbrough, Commons commissioner and voice of the Church of England in parliament, has announced that the mole will be hunted down and prosecuted. Good for him. The way things were going we might have ended up discovering just how much Jacqui’s husband claimed each year for multiple boxes of man-sized tissues. After all, we know that his wife put through a bill for 88 pence for a bath plug for you and me to pay for (it’s that attention to detail and sense of rectitude which is so important in a politician, don’t you think? Remembering that she’d bought a bath plug and then deciding — hey, you know what? We’ll get the mugs to pay for that too. Brilliant). We know about the Prime Minister and his Sky subscription; how much they all spent doing up their kitchens at our expense.