Now Hang on a Minute

There is worrying news filtering through the media today - Esther Rantzen is intending to stand as a Parliamentary candidate; this is perhaps the most disturbing development yet in the entire MPs expenses calamity.

Lynn Faulds-Wood of BBC's 'Wotch-Daaawg' has threatened similar intervention for the sake of the nation. Neither of them would seem, at first sight, to have the required patience for a 70-hour plus weekly workload, dealing with constituents' thoroughly mundane problems.

The obvious danger of a backlash against 'professional politicians' is adopting a US style admiration for candidates 'untainted by experience.' Looking on the bright side, Rantzen has said she wishes only to stand against Margaret 'dry-rot' Moran at the next election. The constituents of Luton South and the wider world need not fear the prospect of Esther's debut performance on the green benches just yet; Ms Moran is political toast. Mags's deselection is as imminent as another clutch of revelations of crimes and misdemenours by MPs in Aunty Telegraph.

Judging by today's 'scoops' the utterly knackered DT hacks seem to be running out of big front pagers. The stories on Bill Wiggin and James Purnell don't appear very robust. Many commentators have been journalistically blitzed by these abuses of power and have found it hard to respond with a strong coherent message for change. Even the Observer's formidable Andrew Rawnsley has struggled to narrow his aim with his usual eloquence, given so many targets worthy of scorn.

But the Guardian's Commentisfree editors made a worthy effort today to delineate the scope of issues needing radical reform if we, as a country, are to embrace a 'New Politics'. They have recruited an army of columnists, each assigned a huge subject such as PR, an elected second chamber or the small matter of a written constitution.

This is the arena where the public should derive a more workable and representative democracy from this chaos. Presenters of TV magazine programmes may be genuinely incensed by this scandal but restoring public trust in Parliamentary is a more complex process than exposing errant double-glazing salesmen.