London Falling

So this is how it ends. More than a decade after Labour came into power in Britain promising ethical leadership and public probity, it is set to leave with public regard for the party and Parliament at a record low. The party is in free fall, the political culture is in shards and the political class, in disgrace. For the first time in more than 300 years, the Speaker of the House has been ousted. Ministers and MPs on both sides of the aisle have resigned. Prime Minister Gordon Brown could be next. For Labour, things will only get worse. European elections on June 4 will leave the party depleted. A general election, which must be held within a year, could well devastate it for a generation.

The source of this particular crisis is a scandal over members of Parliament claiming expenses from the public purse. Their appetites have ranged from the venal to the vulgar and from the petty to the prolific. One minister's husband claimed for a pay-per-view soft-porn movie; another to have his moat cleaned, his piano tuned and the lights fixed at the stable at his country manor. Some charged for remodeling homes they then flipped, while others claimed for mortgages that they had already paid off. The Labour chief whip, who is supposed to enforce the rules, claimed the equivalent of $28,226 over four years for food, without submitting receipts. His Conservative counterpart claimed $4,704 for new windows at his second home. One Tory put in for manure for his garden; a Labour MP claimed $1.17 for a Scotch egg.

A recent poll in the Times of London reveals widespread disenchantment with the establishment. More than 80 percent believe the abuse shows "how self-serving and out of touch most are." Four in five said the MPs' defense that these claims were allowed holds little water. The idea that this scandal should be the thing that brings down this particular establishment beggars belief. A public that could stomach an illegal war on Iraq that cost millions of lives and billions of pounds is gagging at the legal exploitation of expenses that has cost the taxpayer a couple million pounds.

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