'We know no spectacle so ridiculous...

... as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.'

So wrote Macaulay in an essay in the Edinburgh Review in 1843.

No doubt Olympians like Michael White and Simon Heffer are even now considering, over their aperitifs, whether to drop the old Baron's bon mot into their own lofty commentary on the present unpleasantness.

They probably will. If not them, Rod Liddle or Matthew Parris. One of the usual suspects will, anyway, if they haven't already. I should like to offer an contrary view, in defence of our periodical fits of morality. Foreigners quite often believe that the British, and particularly our public servants, have probity coursing through their veins instead of blood.

They are watching us closely this week and there is much gasping, in Italy for example, on finding that this is not universally true.

On the other hand, they behold our disgust and they see that it is genuine. They hear the gnashing of teeth and our wailing that the sky is falling on our shocked heads. They see almost the whole population, on discovering these horrid malefactions, rising up in protest and uttering murderous threats.

And all because, as some of them see it, some not awfully well paid MPs (by some standards) over-claimed a 'mere' (they may say) £5,000 a year, or even £15,000, to which they were not entitled and naturally enough, they may say, tried to conceal the fact.

"So little? Not millions? Only ONE extra house? No yachts? No major contract backhanders? We should be so lucky! Our mayors, our ministers, our premiers, they all take so much in a month, not a year or - pff! - a period of years. Peh. You British. Your politicians are amateurs. Be grateful for that. Be thankful that they steal so little from you compared with what ours steal from us. They rob us blind... but, eh, still we re-elect them because... meh... that is the way of the world. And so, you are going to throw your bad boys out, are you? All of them? And then what will you do? Ai-ai-ai, you British are such puritani."

Yes, Signore, we are indeed. And a little hypocrisy here and there, a moment of looking ridiculous to the successors of Lord Macaulay once in a while, does not alter that fundamental fact about us. And we're rather proud of it. It's what stops our barons from becoming robber barons -- for most of the time. We have lifted a precious old rock, one of those on which our country stands, and we do like what we have found beneath it. We are having a clear-out.

Some people will observe the uproar among our citizens, the political earthquakes, the parliamentary resignations and sackings -- which are only just beginning -- the involvement of the police, the tectonic electoral movements, the imminent defenestration of the Speaker and even possibly of the government, and they may conclude that the totality of the national furore speaks rather well of the British people.