IT started with a trickle and is turning into a flood as MPs fall over themselves to repay expenses in a desperate bid to restore their credibility.

It comes in the wake of a furious public reaction, the likes of which we have seldom seen before, and which has today required The Northern Echo to double the space it devotes to readers’ letters.

Communities Secretary Hazel Blears waving a cheque around on television, after announcing she would be paying £13,332 in capital gains tax on the sale of her second home, was a sight to behold.

Mrs Blears wanted it both ways. She told parliamentary authorities that the Kennington property was her second home, but informed the tax office that it was her main home.

Unbelievably, that is legal, but it is totally wrong. We all know it – and so does Mrs Blears.

Yesterday, we had Labour MP for Luton South Margaret Moran paying back £22,500 she spent on treating dry rot at a property in Southampton.

But the biggest repayment so far came from Health Minister Phil Hope, whose conscience forced him to stump up £41,709 he’d had in second home allowances.

Mr Hope said he could not bear the fact that the expenses controversy had fundamentally changed how he was viewed by his constituents.

“It is very difficult to find that kind of money,” he said.

Indeed it is. Ask the vast majority of people in this country if they could conjure up £41,709, £22,500, or £13,332 and it would be out of the question.

MPs have been detached from reality in a different world. Now, they are having to pay the price.