Politicians have always had a rough time. We always knew many of their number were power-hungry hucksters who swayed in the breeze of opinion, dumping principles like so many stained mattresses in a woodland car park.
But we sorely misjudged them. We thought nothing could top their blinkered ambition. We were wrong. Turns out greed is the trump card.
They would lie, cheat, schmooze, dissemble to get more turf and a good Whitehall berth - then happily risk it all to blag some bootleg beans or underwrite a wide-screen or snaffle a pair of jaunty slacks.
If Parliament introduced a no-child allowance today, by tomorrow you'd see a zombie-wave of crumpled children drifting across Westminster bridge, each bearing a battered suitcase and a label on their duffel coats - Please Look After This Drain.
Meanwhile Daddy would be gorging on the porridge and truffles, his jowls wibble-wobbling with glee, his black pudding of a heart on a side plate, his conscience withered at his feet like a crumpled sock.
We now know that too many MPs cannot recognise the difference between rules and moral obligations. They cannot distinguish between "must not" and "should not". They have no shame.
So when they artlessly ask for your biometric details, your salary, your vote, your trust, a CCTV on your bedpost, the weight of your wheelie bin and a green tax for da lickle Polar Bears we can no longer say: what harm can come of this?
Because now we know. We know of their ways. Their snorting, venal, phlegm-flecked, elbows-out, Harrods-sale, clamber-over-the-bodies-of- the-dead rush for the gullet-stuffing foie gras of unrestrained engorgement.
Not, what value has this? But, what's in it for me?
You'll be duped, skimmed, flogged, sold to the highest bidder, stripped clean like lead on a church roof, used as collateral in a scam to Artex the privy of a long-dead auntie in a "second home".
You'll be sorted, sliced, cut with Ajax and palmed on the street corner to any hollow-eyed junkie with the readies.
It's like giving your Pin number to the bloke fixing your drive; or matches to a nine-year-old; or a razor to a toddler. It's not what they're going to do that terrifies you - because calamity is a given.
It's trying to fathom what they wouldn't do that foments a sweat in the dark of a godless night.
– First published in The Wharf on May 14
