‘They just don’t get it’ could well turn out to be the epitaph for this parliament.
  
The unfairness of the Legg review is unlikely to rouse public sympathy – quite the opposite. Voters are more likely to take the view that the words ‘costs wholly, exclusively and necessarily to enable me to stay overnight away from my only or main home for the purpose of performing my duties as a Member of Parliament‘ should have been taken more seriously at the time.

Reviews and paybacks around the margins of expenses claims will not repair the relationship between MPs and voters because it is not just about the money. It is about the economy, trust and the people’s consent to be governed. MPs cannot sort this out themselves because they have lost that consent and that is why we need a Citizens’ Convention.
 
The furore over the Legg review would be better directed at its failure to address the heart of this problem: MPs sense of ‘entitlement’ to these allowances.

Voters working in the real economy took out cheap loans and 100% mortgages to fulfil their aspirations for a decent quality of life. MPs handed to themselves the ‘John Lewis list’ of consumer goods and property investment on the taxpayer. Now the financial edifice of cheap credit has collapsed, voters have lost jobs and seen their house values plummet, they rightly perceive the feather bedding of their representatives as unacceptable.
 
It is about the hypocrisy of legislating on petty benefit fraud and tax loopholes, or lecturing the public sector on efficiency and budgetary controls, while MPs knew that their expenses would provide a tax-free salary increase. It is talking about transparency and secretly awarding themselves the salary they thought they deserved.
 
They did this behind the public’s backs because they did not think the electorate would agree to it. This has fatally undermined the consent of the people to be governed. The more MPs challenge the outcomes of reviews, argue for higher salaries or justify their needs, the greater the resentment of the voters who have no power to control them beyond elections.

The public is like a cuckolded spouse, torn between distaste at the actual offence and shattered trust at the knowledge that his partner could do all this behind his back. And, like a couple in the throes of marital breakdown, the howls of anger at the wayward spouse may have subsided but it has left more bitterness and contempt than is sustainable for a constructive long-term future.
 
Yes, the Legg review has inherent unfairness. Pay freezes and redundancies to address the bankers’ financial crisis are unfair too. ‘Get over it’ is the phrase that springs to mind. Focusing attention on this simply reinforces the public view that MPs are not working for the people first and foremost.

It is no wonder that ideas about primaries for selections and proportional representation are being debated alongside this scandal. These proposals are about giving greater control to people not politicians. The reason Cameron’s message about ‘big government’ is resonating with the electorate is less about intervention and public services than the feeling that MPs are still controlling the process and as long as people feel that, they will not accept the outcome or let government off the hook. That is why a Citizens’ Convention would be a constructive first step to reconciliation.