NO doubt there are those who consider me a vitriolic, cantankerous, old so-and-so, yet I am sure there are many more than I who are absolutely gobsmacked at our honourable MPs expenses’ revelations.

Insult is added to injury when we hear of their excuses and reasons, ranging from “I’m sorry, it was a misunderstanding, a clerical error or I complied with accepted procedure”. Quite frankly, this is the material I spread around my rose bushes.

They are only sorry for one reason – they were caught out.

As a pick-and-shovel coalminer all my working life, it’s always been apparent to me that he that shouted loudest invariably had more influence than him that did the actual shovelling.

Party politics isn’t any different, wherein the gift of the gab far too often camouflages the person’s real worth and personality.

We inadvertently elect many of these worthless windbags by simply maintaining allegiance to a particular party rather than make full analysis of the candidate involved.

Never before has party politics been so fully exposed as the means to procuring gainful opportunity.

Just how many years have we, the ordinary public, been subjected to this scandalous abuse of public finance?

Come back Guy Fawkes, all is forgiven.

AW Dunn, Spennymoor, Co Durham.