Tone-deaf

How many British members of Parliament does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: none. Conservative MP David Willetts brought in workmen to change 25 bulbs at his home in London and charged the work to the taxpayer. The bill for this came to £115 ($175) plus tax. It was just one of a much longer list of expenses for maintaining a second home, to which he is entitled because he must spend time in the capital city as well as in his constituency in southern England. Then there was the allegation, later denied, that fellow Conservative Douglas Hogg had claimed, among a list of other expenses he did ask for, the £2,115 he paid to have the moat cleaned at the family's ancient home. Hogg, incidentally, is the husband of Sarah Hogg, who chairs private equity firm 3i Group plc and, as a member of the unelected House of Lords, may also be entitled to certain expenses.

Echoes of John Thain's $1,400 parchment waste bin? Or of former Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc chief Fred Goodwin's £700,000 ($1.1 million) annual pension? Perhaps the comparison isn't as far-fetched as it seems. For while, individually, these and similar claims may not amount to much, there are much worse examples from across the party spectrum. Even government ministers have pocketed large sums after selling homes refurbished at taxpayer expense. Some MPs have used parliamentary allowances in ways that appear to have aroused the interest of the tax authorities and the police. And, over and over again, those caught in headlights have tried to brazen it out. They have blamed a system that permitted and even encouraged this behavior instead of admitting they have a responsibility to behave according to the spirit rather than the letter of the law.

In other words, they don't "get it." They don't understand why the public is angry and feels betrayed. They don't understand that they are neither victims of a corrupting system, nor a singular breed entitled to special privileges. And even some of those who have agreed to pay back money don't really see that they have done anything wrong. If the system allowed it and the administrators didn't prevent it, then members who pushed the rules to the limit were within their rights. How like those bankers they do sound!

For the truth is that a series of revelations about MPs' expenses has driven the news about swine flu off the front pages and focused attention on the porcine behavior of our elected representatives instead. "Snouts in the trough" is the phrase on the country's lips at the moment, and while we can laugh at some of the more outrageous claims, the whole affair has damaged the reputation of Parliament.

Of course, there is a legitimate debate about MPs' expenses, just as there are legitimate debates about how strictly we want to control bankers' bonuses and how far we want to tax high earners. After all, many -- though not all -- lawmakers do have to maintain second homes in remote constituencies, and even London MPs bear real costs in the service of the public, which should be reimbursed. There's a genuine argument, too, about the need to pay MPs at similar levels to the level of professionals such as school principals or doctors. At the moment an MP earns less than the head of a large school and so may feel "entitled" to make up the difference through his expenses.

But there's a sense of resentment that this group has set itself up in judgment over others. It is MPs who decide the entitlements for the country's poorest people, who set income and corporate tax levels and who have, until recently, set their own salaries and pensions. And yet they have shown themselves unworthy of such responsibility.

Let us not forget, either, that in Britain's parliamentary democracy, the majority of government ministers, including Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, are also elected MPs. (A few, like financial-sector minister Paul Myners, are appointed members of the House of Lords.) With the backing of their parliamentary colleagues, they have acquired some of the country's largest banks on our behalf and presume to influence the remuneration of the bankers now in their employ. Why should the public, or indeed the bankers, take them seriously?

The prime minister has publicly apologized on behalf of all parties, but his reputation and the reputation of the house has taken a battering. At a time when ordinary people must tighten their belts, the anger at self-serving and nest-feathering parliamentarians will be hard to assuage.