When is a crime not a crime?

That might seem to be a strange question, but it has an easy answer. A crime is not a crime when it's been committed by an elected member of the UK Parliament. At least, that's what the MPs currently charged with their various crimes linked to the expenses scandal would have us believe.

Now I think we all recognise that MPs are, by and large, invariably strangers to the truth from time to time, some more so than others; and of course we are approaching a General Election, which is a time when all sorts of fairy tales are spread by politicians and labelled as truth. We have long been subjected to distortions of the truth by politicians such as Tony Blair, easily recognisable by his duplicity and hunger for wealth, and the current Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who lied blatantly when facing the Iraq Inquiry.

However, I think that even by the standards which they apply to themselves, it is stretching it too far to ask us to believe that things such as falsifying accounts by creating receipts for non-existent purchases or claiming for a mortgage that didn't exist are totally honest and above-board things to do.

If they are found not guilty, and remember, we live in an era when it's often demonstrated that there are different levels of law for different people, then will this open the doors for everyone to take part in creative accounting?

If the charges against the three MPs and the Peer involved in this additional scandal were unfounded then the Criminal Prosecution Service would not have allowed them to be brought to the Courts. Therefore it would appear that they are totally founded on truth. The MPs are attempting top claim Parliamentary privilege, but if we have a system that allows criminals to go scot-free by hiding behind the skirts of 'Mother' Parliament then it would indicate that the system is even more corrupt than some people think, and that is something that I would hate to see proven.

No, there can only be one possible outcome to this debacle, and that is that those committing crimes, whether MPs or not, must pay the just penalty for those crimes.