So the Lib Dems use their expenses on biscuits and trouser presses, the Tories on chandeliers and moats and Labour on loo seats and damp rot.
While the revelations in The Daily Telegraph have caused acute ambarrassment to all MPs, they also go to prove that most political stereotypes are in fact correct. They have also helped lift the paper's sales by nearly 100,000 copies a day according to reports so all in all it's been the story of the year.
Nonetheless it was difficult not to have some sympathy with Labour peer Lord Foulkes who got in a bitter argument with a BBC News 24 presenter about her own remuneration - 92 grand of licence fee money to read the autocue on an obscure digital channel seems equally excessive. Today we learn that 80 members of staff at Channel 4 get paid over 100k a year, for which Andy Duncan put up a rather lame defence.
While the politicians have moved quickly to acknowledge that they are over-paid, wouldn't it be nice if this started a wider debate and that the BBC and C4 start cutting their cloth accordingly. If the Daily Telegraph achieves that then it will have done a greater service then it initially set out to do.
