Published: Thursday, 5th November, 2009 4:00pm

No honour among thieves

by Maurice O'Brien

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ONCE upon a time the very idea of a bunch of teenagers, however well intentioned, conducting a mock session in the House of Commons chamber would have been deemed an act of contempt.

Last week, with assent from a mortgage-flipping Speaker and egged on by a gang of MPs behaving like third formers who'd sneaked into the girls' toilets and left the seats up, the Yoof Parliament met.

But why not? The mob supposed to be there rarely are, and, either way, the behaviour of many MPs is now so far beneath contempt as to make words like principle, reputation and honour almost untranslateable.

Thousands are packing prison cells right now for taking money which wasn't theirs; and admitting that they couldn't repay their ill-gotten gains was probably worth an extra couple of years inside.

Yet the likes of McNulty and Jacqui Smith get to keep most of the loot and continue living off the fat of the land, and a Tory worm named Wilshire has the sickening nerve to compare the plight of cheating MPs to "undesirables led to Hitler's gas chambers".

What's the betting they skilfully manage to dilute Kelly's proposals so that the trough, deeper and wider than ever, will soon be beckoning once more?

At least the green leather seats won't wear out while they're sitting on their hands as Britain's sovereignty and freedom are eroded on the nod, and their impotence enables weak, lapdog ministers to send soldiers to be slaughtered on behalf of a mockingly corrupt nation which would rather be left undemocratically alone to poison the world with heroin.

Meanwhile every time Old Prudence has a wobbler his critics wave the Mental Health Act at him. But Boy Dave, who in September 2007 gave us a "cast iron guarantee" on a EU Constitreaty referendum, does a full-marbles Lisbonian U-turn without a blush.

Maybe he's forgotten he still requires one of the biggest polling swings in history to take control of the House of Hypocrites.

- WHEN defence minister Bill Rammell, lumbered with making the Commons apology for the TA training U-turn, accused Tory Liam Fox of being "disingenius" he was presumably ensuring he wouldn't be ejected for using unparliamentary language.

- LIKE an advert for a brand of Neapolitan ice cream with a Battenberg slice, four police cars were parked nose-to-tail in a lay-by on the A4 at Calcot.

The rest of us cruised faultlessly past, wondering what act of urban terrorism had been perpetrated by the white van driver being quizzed by the only copper in sight.

The next morning's news was full of reports of police forces seeking easy prey to meet their targets. God forbid it should happen here.

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