They tend, at best, not to be the most appealing of species, but when the likes of Hazel Blears, Jacqui Smith, Gordon Brown and assorted MPs attempt to justify their various second home expenses, one cannot but help feeling that one is in the presence of some truly awful beings. Note: I have left out the word human.

It beggars belief that they will so barefacedly, and so openly, lie to TV and Radio interviewers, QED you and I, and then attempt to camouflage their deceit with copious doses of red herrings such as "it's in the rules" or "these are all checked by the accounts committee".

It is as if they cannot distinguish between right and wrong; confusing these two adjectives with their lesser cousins legal and illegal. How very worrying it is that our elected law makers cannot see the clear difference between legality and morality.

Statutes and Bills of Law can be useful pointers as to how we should all conduct our daily lives. But they are no more than that. If they were clear, absolute and unquestionable then we would have no need for the Court system.

These manmade statutory rules and regulations, called laws, are there for guidance purposes only. We have our god-given consciences to help us make our final choices, and most of us are able to manage quite well in this way. It's just such a pity that our 'leaders' appear not to be aware that they, more than any others in the land, should be leading by example.

Parliamentary privilege is just that. A privilege. It was never intended to be taken beyond the chamber of the House of Commons and into the television studios. And it was surely not created to be used by MPs as an anaesthetic when confronted publicly with questions of truth.

If they are not careful there is a real danger, as Brown astutely observed recently, of civil unrest, given the potentially difficult economic times ahead. When real poverty and hunger exists it doesn't take much for the 'pot to boil over' and the sight of our leaders so brazenly grabbing for whatever they can get their hands on at this time is far from helpful.

Some of the things allegedly claimed by MPs on expenses: