AN oven glove, a washing machine, pergola and plants, another washing machine, a flat screen television, a drill and bit set… No, it isn’t a repeat of Bruce Forsyth’s Generation Game. Yes, now you’ve guessed – it’s another episode of MPs and Expenses.

We all know that politics is a dirty business, but does Home Secretary Jacqui Smith really need two washing machines?

What little remains of her credibility evaporated last Tuesday when I listened to her being interviewed on Radio 4 and, later, on television.

In a complete betrayal of her sex she claims that she is being targeted because she is a woman.

She still hasn’t grasped the fact that she and her like have been exposed as milking a system so full of holes it beggars belief.

Ms Smith maintains that she can still look her constituents in the eye. With a majority of less than 2,000 it won’t be for much longer.

And now it’s been revealed that Sinn Fein MPs have claimed nearly £500,000 for flats in London even though they refuse to take their seats in Parliament.

As the conveyer belt rolls on, I can hear dear Old Brucie exclaiming: “Oh, didn’t they do well.”

Ian Sadler, Darlington.

REFORMING the way MPs’ expenses are paid must take place, but this in itself will not restore the public’s confidence within the political system.

This is because the relationship between voter and politician is no different from any other relationship, be it personal, business or the workplace. By nature, people give others a chance to prove themselves, which develops into trust and respect.

But years of repeated lies, deceit, dishonesty, corruption, hypocrisy, countless scandals, of treating the public with contempt, no accountability and a refusal to take responsibility for any wrongdoing has meant that the scandal of MPs’ expenses has become the last straw.

MPs fail to grasp that just because they made something legal, it doesn’t always make it right. If people have lost respect and can no longer trust their own MPs with an expenses form, how can they trust MPs with matters such as the economy and terrorism?

To restore the public’s confidence within the political system requires a return to accountability, honesty and a government of the people, by the people, for the people.

CT Riley, Spennymoor, Co Durham.