SO, no turkey for our MPs this year, or the next for that matter. Or ever again, if we have our way. Serves them right too. They’re all the same, out for themselves, looking after number one.

We’ve all heard the verdict of the hanging judges in the bars, cafes and bus stops. And we nod our heads and agree.

Actually, I don’t.

I’m sick of the cynical and bullying attitude that far too many people show to MPs and other people who choose – I’ll come back to that word – a career in public life.

Don’t get me wrong. An 11 per cent pay rise at a time of unprecedented austerity was a non-starter. In recommending it, the members of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority have shown a naiveté that would be charming in a toddler, but which is a bit unnerving in senior civil servants.

But let’s not forget what IPSA was set up to do. It was put there to ensure that MPs did not mark their own homework and award themselves gold stars; to ensure that the nodand- a-wink strategy of pegging wages while upping expenses was stopped. It was put there to ensure that MPs’ remuneration was decided impartially and with transparency.

Now those sensible aims are at risk because IPSA has come up with conclusions that we find uncomfortable. Amid the bluster of the party leaders, one question remains – if IPSA goes, what takes its place?

The reaction from political leaders and the public has ignored that the rise would be largely self-financing through changes in over-generous pension provision. It is an attitude rooted in the expenses scandal.

Looking back at that scandal, we see it was a once-in-a-lifetime, game-changing episode that destroyed fragile public trust in the political class. It was sordid and sickening.

But it can’t colour our attitude towards politicians forever.

If we took some of the comments to their logical conclusion, we would never give an MP a pay rise again.

The expenses scandal was important. But it is in the past. Many of the attitudes and individuals that were part of it have departed.

Some have gone willingly, some hurried along by the electorate and the courts.

There is a chance for a fresh start. Of the six MPs on Teesside, five weren’t even in the Commons when the problems arose. I have no grounds on which to question their integrity and it is wrong for them to be penalised and pilloried for other people’s transgressions.

People who enter public life choose to do so. They must accept scrutiny, challenge and criticism of their behaviour and motivation that private citizens don’t have to put up with. But they do not deserve to be engulfed in a tide of cynicism.

Politics is imperfect. But it is all we have got to improve society by peaceful consensus.

I am reluctant to mention his name in a context like this, but let us recall how Nelson Mandela achieved what he did.

He didn’t win on the battlefield or by the bomb, he won through politics. He won by negotiation, compromise and by creating a system that his own supporters and the boneheaded advocates of apartheid could live with and which gave South Africa a hope of lasting peace and prosperity.

His life should be a reminder of what we can achieve through the political process.

We should continue to be questioning, cautious and critical of politicians. But the destructive cynicism that pollutes political debate has to stop.