Whatever the Standards and Privileges Committee rule today (Guido has the whitewash removing solvents ready) Spelman should have to pay back the cash she fiddled from her parliamentary expenses to pay the nanny.

If, as Spelman has been spinning, the Lyon inquiry reports that there is no evidence of deliberate wrongdoing or a breach of Commons rules, this will infuriate many parents like Mr & Mrs Fawkes, who have to pay for childcare out of post-tax income. To pay a nanny costs middle-class parents some £40,000 a year in pre-tax income. We are expected to believe that Spelman’s nanny was actually her constituency secretary* thus paid for by the taxpayer and that in return for her childcare duties her only compensation was room and board. Who really believes that the money was not payment for her childcare duties? Unbelievable, it simply does not wash.

If anyone knows of a nanny willing to work for only room and board can you please let Mrs Fawkes know, because we have never heard of such a deal. This was a complete and utter p*ss-take out of the taxpayer. Here is the acid test – if it really was completely above board and as she claims – why did she stop the arrangement? This benefits fiddle was too much, Spelman should pay back the cash even if the Committee rules it was “not deliberate”.