If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit.

In the deep moral abyss of the ‘expenses scandal’, the nation mourns the falling from grace of those posh-nosh-munching loveable rogues. Ooh don’t you just want to ruffle their flouncy hair, those cheeky munchkins. Stealing our money, all the while laden with rhetoric with a reassuring nod and smile, hands outreached for our votes- our trust- our pockets.

The question is, do you blame them? ...

It’s easy to lay claim to being the most trusting of characters, but how shocking was the discovery that, if you’re given the right to claim expenses, you’ll warp your thinking to justify the inclusion of the cost of petunias (life's no bed of roses, petunias get you through the hard times) and getting rid of dry rot (anyone else find an amusing metaphor for politics in there..?).

Until that is, you’re caught with your hands in the cookie jar. Terribly embarrassing stuff but get away with it once and a voice within convinces you- this was MADE for you. Be good to yourself. Live a little! Go for the bourbons- maybe even the choccy hobnobs. Exaggerating expenses is too easy, giving little thought as to where this invisible money comes from. And let’s be honest with ourselves: we are all deeply flawed masters of disguising our procrastination with paper shuffling.

Throughout the unravelling of this latest media frenzy, I’ve been reflecting on the finer nuances between ‘us’ and ‘them’. And well...they appear very fine indeed. It may well be the difference between rounding up and adding on some zeros- but is it not the same principle?

Life seems to be a matter of how much we can get away with- or how little.

We live in a compensation society where living goes beyond survival and it’s acceptable to strive to maintain ‘a lifestyle’. Petunias and all. I’m sure most of the politician-brigade didn’t set out to ‘steal’, it’s just expenses…well it’s a perk of the job surely, an entitlement, a pat on the back?

The ego has a good way of convincing us to submit, a weakness we’re all susceptible to. You start off with good intentions and then set new ones when the old ones lie dormant and forgotten in a thick layer of dust.

So today readers, trust no one- least of all yourself. And as for that ego, wage your war. Catch it, bin it, kill it.