Decent MPs.

Mrs Rigby thinks there are plenty of decent MPs who are being hurt by the current expenses scandal. She's sure that most of the 646 won't have "flipped" their second homes and won't be claiming their sister's spare room is their main family home. She's worried that the good MPs will be thrown out with the bathwater their less scrupulous colleagues have dirtied.

Ignoring the second home thing for a moment, which some MPs have clearly abused, an MP with a constituency a couple of hundred miles from Westminster will have to spend a lot on travelling, and will also need somewhere to stay overnight. Those MPs who have done this at least practicable cost to the taxpayer should be lauded, irrespective of their political party.

Mrs Rigby would like to see frugal MPs named and praised by the media. Whichever newspaper takes the lead, once the nasties are out of the way, she thinks they need to be realistic - and fair.

There was an article in the Telegraph on 7th May which tried to do this, giving Philip Hollobone, MP for Kettering, the accolade of being the "cheapest" MP. Dennis Skinner was second.

Mrs Rigby wondered at the time if there was some sort of internal competition for being the cheapest, because MP Desmond Swayne said here

He said he was competitive about lowering his expenses and was proud to be in the lowest 10