No one is really surprised in the least that legislation is for sale, that four Labour Lords have been caught brazenly setting out the tariff rates that they are willing to work at is a little unusual. Ordinary non-political people presume this happens all the time, whereas Westminster Village insiders deny it is so and reckon we have a relatively uncorrupted legislature. Sir Michael White is the leading advocate of this proposition and he should really know better.

The ordinary people have it right. You can buy legislation openly, covertly and in a combination of the two. You can even buy yourself a seat in the legislature itself. The Labour Party is structured to sell policy setting to the unions, which is why we have an unreformed and bloated public sector. Corporations buy former legislators to lobby for laws made by their former colleagues day in, day out. Staffers are lobbyists at the same time as providing material support to MPs.

We have a parliament of whores.

Guido confidently predicts none of these lot will go to jail. They may even escape reprimand since no money changed hands. You may wonder why this is the case, after all the original Sunday Times “Cash for Questions” investigation in the Major years involved cash changing hands. The reason no money changed hands this time is because newspapers can no longer “entrap” crooked politicians. They made sure of that after too many close calls in the past...

*Parliament of Whores is the title of a great book by P J O’Rourke.