End of the line for greedy MPs

They are angry that some of their hard earned money was used to buy luxury fittings for her constituency home.

“You are going to write something aren’t you?” several women asked me on Saturday at a plant sale in St Philips’ Church Hall. “We think it’s scandalous.”

The MP’s expenses included two fitted bathrooms, a high lustre silver shower screen and a whirlpool bath, items beyond the financial reach of many constituents.

Ms Barlow told The Argus she wishes now that she had never bought the smart shower screen but added: “It isn’t a moat.” This was a reference to claims made by wealthy Tory MP Douglas Hogg.

But constituents, and I have seldom seem them so mutinous, have already noticed Ms Barlow lives in Tongdean Road, possibly the poshest place in Hove.

They have also observed that Celia Barlow is not even allowing The Argus to look behind the luxury shower screen in swanky Tongdean Road.

She has offered to apologise to any outraged constituents. She may find she is suffering both from a sore throat and writer’s cramp if she does.

Ms Barlow has also made no second home claim for the last two years and has also previously voted in favour of all MPs’ expenses being made public.

She has been out and about as MP for Hove, taking up local issues such as opposing a supermarket in Portland Road, but she will not be remembered by many for that.

Sadly she will be recalled, along with scores of other MPs, as a public servant who showed the people greed rather than gratitude.

If the system used in California applied in Hove, I have little doubt enough electors would sign a petition for a poll on whether she should continue.

Instead Ms Barlow will probably hang on until the next election, due within a year, which she is now almost certain to lose. Her majority is one of the smallest in the country.

There are elections tomorrow for county councils and Labour is likely to take a fearful hammering even though some of the most outrageous expenses claims have been made by Tory MPs.

Hove does not have a say in this but its people do have a chance to make their feelings known in the European elections on the same day.

Most voters will not be thinking of Europe in contests which are widely seen not to matter much.

Instead they will be largely a referendum on MPs and their expenses. The number of Labour votes cast in places like Hove will be lamentably low.

Labour is already third in the opinion polls, languishing behind the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives.

It is even possible that when the Euro election results are eventually declared they will finish behind UKIP. They might not even beat the Greens in some places.

If that happens, Labour MPs are likely to panic, ousting Gordon Brown, and the expenses scandal will have claimed the biggest victim of all.

Before the Daily Telegraph revelations started almost a month ago, I wrote a column saying most MPs were decent, mentioning many local examples, and I still hold that view. However perceptive people will have observed I did not include Ms Barlow on my little list.

But most of her expenses claims were accepted by the authorities and all were well within the law. The anger expressed by constituents means that there will have to be a change in the law as well as a change in MP.

More widespread reforms are also being canvassed including fixed term Parliaments which I certainly favour. They would end the unfair advantage Prime Ministers have of being able to call elections when they are doing well or the disadvantage, in Gordon Brown's case, of having to stagger on past the point of no return.

I do not favour proportional representation. A look at the enormous voting form for today’s Euro elections will demonstrate what an unwieldy and ungainly method it is.

Do you recognise many if indeed any of the names before you? Do you know who your existing MEPs are? Do you understand the system?

Applied at a local level, it either destroys or weakens the precious link MPs should have with their constituents. It creates a system in which small parties can hold advantages over large ones as unpleasant deals take place.

Do we need political parties at all? I have seen many calls for a system in which most members are independents like Martin Bell, the BBC reporter who took on Neil Hamilton and won.

But Mr Bell did not prove all that effective in the House of Commons and little has been heard of the Kidderminster man who became an MP after winning through a campaign to save the local hospital.

If you had 600 independent MPs, they could vote in 600 different ways and there would be chaos. There would be no coherent government and no political programme of necessary reforms.

Celebrities of all shapes and sizes have been jumping on the political bandwagon threatening to put themselves forward as potential MPs.

They include diminutive David Van Day of Dollar but only two years ago he was unsuccessfully trying to gain votes as a Tory for Brighton and Hove City Council. Not much independence shown there then.

Then there is film director and columnist Michael Winner.

As for Esther Rantzen, I would rather eat a vat full of my belly button fluff than vote for her. I have always disliked her ever since she supplanted Bernard Braden as a TV presenter.

Richard Ingrams, who called her Enid Rancid, said it was hard to express in words what was wrong with her but she made him feel uneasy. I would simply say it was naked ambition covered with a thin veneer of mock modesty.

Are the existing parties up to the job? Labour looks dead and buried for a generation or more, having spent too long in office.

David Cameron’s Tories fail to inspire, partly because too many of them have been part of a failed system. The Lib Dems have largely managed to avoid the expenses mire but it is hard to envisage the lightweight Nick Clegg as Prime Minister.

Tomorrow may be a chance for some of the minor parties, such as the Greens, to make a good showing. It may even be the right time for new parties to be formed.

For the voters’ verdict on the current lot is likely to be the same as anyone who sneaks a view inside Celia Barlow’s mansion – what a shower.