Expenses, recession, war will dominate the election

The juxtaposition of the huge surge in unemployment with the latest revelations of parliamentary sleaze concentrate the mind no end.

According to one of my well-informed sources, David Cameron’s greatest fear about this continuing crisis is that a credible group of people will come forward and form some sort of party that will contest the next election on the basis of campaigning for one term only, to clear out the current sleaze, institute wholesale parliamentary reform, and then leave the field.

A party with a name like Reform (old school?) or Sweep Out (anarchic?). Might gain traction.

But the truth is that however bankrupt they believe their governing institutions to be, what will be uppermost in the mind of the electors will be their own financial and economic position. With a predicted three to four million jobless by this time next year, the pain will be intensifying.

At the same time, Britain is likely by then to have at least 10,000 men and women tied up in Pakistan and Afghanistan, maybe more, as the position there continues to spiral out of control. Five more of “our boys” were killed there this week alone.

This will be a horrid backdrop against which we shall be asked to re-elect many of the Tories and Labourites who have been embroiled in the current scandal.

The greatest service might be for an independent inventory of which MPs are clean and which are not. There are some very, very clean, and some decidedly not. The problem will reside with those who are merely a bit murky. It may at least be an election in which the individual candidate transcends the party.

In the meantime, stand by for the bit of the parliament for which there has never been an election: the House of Lords. Yes, I’m not going to leave this one alone. Should we not at least consider stopping any more appointments to the Lords until it is sorted out?