Members not honourable enough

It can't be that the only people immune from watchful regulation are those who represent us.

I used to like visiting the Palace of Westminster. It brought back fond memories of British Constitution O level. I liked the sense of national centrality, complacent history, clubbable purpose. I liked the civility of officials and the way the police on the door - like those who guard Buckingham Palace - somehow exude a faint holiday air. I even quite liked the dreadful cod-medieval hatchments and the outbreaks of rod-banging and cries of I-spy-strangers.

Not any more. There is a sense that gilded panelling is camouflage for grubbiness. Parliament hangs on to words about itself - Honourable and learned... honourable and gallant - like a comedy trollop wailing “I'm a good girl, I am”. Most importantly of all, there is an insulting dislocation between the self-regulated “honour” of MPs and the mistrust they load on the rest of us.

Listening to John Spellar's defence of Speaker Martin was a queasy business. All he could do - as chair of the committee on expenses - was to trumpet that there is nothing to worry about, MPs work hard, there is “not one shred of evidence” that anybody claims on a non-existent mortgage or sucks up allowances for money they haven't spent. He added that those who worried about the Speaker's wife's taxi bill are “snobs”, while getting pretty snobby himself about journalists.

Certainly the Conway affair was recognised and - up to a point - punished (no fraud charges yet, I note). But it shone a dreary light on to the routine licence permitted to MPs. And given the increasing institutional suspiciousness the rest of us suffer, it demonstrated that the last people in the country to be trusted by MPs are MPs themselves.

If your child, nephew, friend or sister-in-law wants work experience (even unpaid) at the BBC these days, for instance, there is no way an insider can fix it. It is, rightly, centralised in the name of fairness and diversity. Private recruiters are hedged in by anti-discrimination laws. Yet MPs and ministers, their honourable white noses in the air, may on a whim employ not only a spouse but children, lovers, friends and in-laws. There is a reasonable case for the spouse if constituencies are distant; for the rest there is no excuse. These are public jobs on public money, privileges carrying marketable CV cachet. Derek Conway's problem was that his son wasn't doing much; but even if he was, it would stink.

Sir Christopher Kelly has expressed a need to look again at the family rule, and there seems to be a move towards tighter oversight of expenses. Good. Next we need action on former ministers who cash in with private sector sinecures. Gordon Brown, in opposition, spoke scornfully of the Tories' “revolving door from Cabinet to boardroom”. But 28 Labour ministers have passed through it, grinning. Patricia Hewitt is tied up with private medical outfits; David Blunkett is adviser to an ID card bidder. As for Tony Yo-Blair making a US fortune after the misery that his transatlantic sycophancy wrought on British troops and tranquillity, words fail me.

Those who represent us should live on the same planet and not squeal at reform. For everything has changed, and they did it. Consider: there was a time when professionals in Britain enjoyed a high degree of collegiate self-regulation and trust. The assumption was that doctors, teachers, military and police knew their jobs. Today they are subject to targets, league tables and mistrustful demands for statistics. The past was not perfect, but a sledgehammer of regulation has been set on a nut.

Everywhere a culture of mandatory paperwork and back-covering wastes time and erodes goodwill. A lovely example from the NHS: chap with serious but intermittent condition goes to see eminent consultant; symptoms have abated so consultant says: “OK, come straight to me next time it happens and I can do tests.” NHS clipboard-woman says: “Are you signing this patient off or making a future appointment?” “Neither,” says the doctor patiently. “I need to see him when the condition is active.” Row ensues between clipboard woman and doctor, she being unable to grasp the organic, unpredictable nature of medicine and wanting only to tick a box.

Everyone, especially in public service, has similar examples of suspicious, mechanistic monitoring; nursery teachers must list each “skill” their charges acquire and you can't take children on a nature walk without filing a “risk assessment”. And note that if you are genuinely “honourable” and give your time free as a museum trustee or parish councillor, you must fill in intrusive forms about your connections and finances on the assumption that given a chance everyone's on the fiddle. And just you try claiming home-as-office expenses anywhere like those Michael Martin rakes in: the Revenue will be down your throat.

Meanwhile MPs - reasonably paid and holding gilded pension rights - rack up dubious expenses and employ their families on public money. It has the same effect as when John Prescott went unpunished after a squalid affair with a subordinate, on office premises. In the real world, it could have been “gross misconduct” and the sack. Yet he was part of a government whose laws have made the workplace ever primmer: good people lose jobs or have their businesses crippled on mere assertion that they glanced at a leg or used an inappropriate word.

It cannot be that the only people immune from watchful regulation are those who decree it. From lechery to nepotism, from creative expenses to the use of public prestige to rake in directorships, you can't abolish trust in other professionals and still expect it yourself. Honour isn't working.