Of MPs, moats and the levelling tendency

Is it wrong to feel mildly envious of those of you who’re enjoying the scandal over MPs’ expenses so very much more than I am? Possibly so. Envy is, after all, not a particularly attractive emotion. Subliminally, I suppose what’s so unattractive about it is that it’s the province of losers, the under-performers, the perpetual have-nots, in the same way that whatever else kindness may signal, it’s about possession, competence and success, however relative in measure. So, perhaps I should simply try to find more goodwill in my heart towards the various circumstances that are — according to the media at any rate — triggering a ‘revolution’ amongst our parliamentarians, fired by the righteous angry zeal — so the media tell us once again — of an outraged British electorate.

Yet, truth be told, this ‘revolution’ feels more depressing than inspiring. For one thing, it’s gone on too long already, and I don’t just mean the past fourteen days, either. Remember Nannygate, anyone? Nearly a year ago, most of the scenery had already been dragged into place: the rules on parliamentary expenses exposed as a sort of Montessori-style ‘prepared environment’ in which the full wide spectrum of human nature might freely be expressed, David Cameron’s habitual cringing deference to each passing day’s media narrative already dressed up as ‘ruthlessness’ (if not actually ‘setting the agenda’), public fury already more often assumed or asserted by those who felt the public ought to be furious than actually displayed (at least without aggressive prompting) on the part of the general public, who seem to me, at any rate, far more illusionless regarding the qualities of the political classes than some of those classes, or their friends in the media, fully comprehend.