Expenses furore

In the middle of blogsphere there a thousands of posts about the disgraceful use of taxpayer's money for porticoes, manure and swimming pools, but what I can't fathom are the rules and processes themselves?

When could tending to roses using cow dung ever be a necessity of public office? How could a helipad "gag" find it's way onto an expense form that could be submitted "in error"? Who set rules like this, and who thinks it's right to "play the rules" in this way.

Maybe my sense of morality and fairness is abnormal, but i bet it's not dissimilar to yours.

I know we've all put in the odd expense claim that was a bit wide - the handwritten taxi receipt - but at least you did it out of a sense of fairness (didn't you?). And it was only a few quid and probably offset the unclaimed Oyster journeys you forgot to claim for, or the coffees that you bought for your client contacts and thought was too tight to submit.

MPs probably do deserve to get paid more than they do given their important roles but that's no excuse for a lack of common sense or decency. I think that 99% of what MPs do are for the greater good and I know no-one can be perfect (I'm certianly not) but the expenses process is clearly rotten to the core and it's time to pay a fair wage and a total overhaul of how the governance system runs.