Tonight:
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A plague on all their houses, cry the voters, contemplating the wreckage of MPs' dignity as the wretches scrabble to atone for their pool-cleaning, manure-purchasing, creative-accounting ways.
Yet another nadir in public trust is reached across the board: this affair hits a demoralised New Labour where it hurts and makes a sham of David Cameron's claims to have purged his party of Old Tory seigneurial presumption when it comes to the upkeep of country piles and the frightful cost of moats.
One major figure on the political stage still commands public trust and confidence, though you have to go rather a long way to find him. Barack Obama has just become the most popular leader in modern times, in Britain as well as in the US, according to data by the Populus pollsters.
Returning to Washington after his honeymoon period, I had rather expected the euphoria to have died down. On the contrary, with America still deep in recession and new highs in jobless totals, the wheels on the presidential bandwagon are still firmly on.
True, we are talking about a gifted son of the gods here, whose veryphysical confidence boosts sagging morale. Also the "darling of the world", as one American observer put it, is still in the the "post-promise, pre-delivery" stage - but undeniably, he shines.
Much effort has been spent by both the main parties in stealing some of Mr Obama's stage magic since his election. Team Brown boasts of a close relationship with David Axelrod, the strategic genius guiding Mr Obama.
The odd thing is that seasoned politicians can study a masterclass and yet find it impossible to translate at home because they do not really want to change the things about themselves that don't work.
So having watched Mr Obama's team use the internet to communicate with people who do not absorb their political info from newspapers and TV, the PM managed to make a heroic mess of his own critical YouTube moment.
These days, for a party to be stuck with a leader of whom the best Mandelsonian spin is that he is serious and leaves the "razzamattaz"to the Opposition just won't do. We want both and why not? The rest of us have to multi-task: why not the leader?
David Cameron tried to brand himself once as the British Obama but that's perilous when you are a plummy chap who went to Eton, rather than a lanky kid from straitened circumstances who is a walking triumph of the meritocratic ideal.
Nonetheless, the Opposition leader's response to the expenses scandal was a quick and savvy retribution and had the kind of directness which has become Obama's hallmark.
If his anger with his greedy MPs was synthetic, he managed to conceal it and sounded as cross as the rest of us. Mr Brown, slow to apologise and stuck on blaming "the system', still speaks as if it can be assumed that most reasonable people think well of New Labour.
That's a dangerous misconception and one which is more likely to come unstuck in a big way at the election, the longer it is indulged.
When David Miliband told me during his American trip this week thatthe party needed to "raise its game" and find a "can-do spirit", he was not only setting his cap at some future leadership contest and borrowing a bit of Obama's "Yes we can!" sense of purpose, he was tacitly diagnosing something insidious in his party right now: a sense of drift and a resentful bitterness about its decline.
Apologies in politics as elsewhere only work if you sound as if you mean them. Mr Obama was both swift and to the point when he said he had "screwed up" (as we never say at Westminster) in the appointment to a key post of a favourite, Tom Daschle, who turned out to have enough of his own creative ways with his tax return.
The impression President Obama conveys when he talks straight about his failings is that he has the judgment and self-confidence to admit flaws.
British politics has, for some time, been governed by the sullen assumption that apology has to be wrenched from those who err. Mr Brown would clearly prefer to have his teeth pulled than give one - and now it's too late for us to give him credit.
The other thing I note on leaving the US to return to recriminatory Britain is that the optimism of a new administration and its dauntless spirit even in grim economic times is enviable.
Washington is abuzz with how far (or not) Obama's opening to Iran is bearing fruit, arguing over the chances of real advance on the Israel-Palestinian conflict and about to attempt a new arms-control intiative with a mulish, unpredictable Russia.
The odds on outright sucess in any, let alone all, of these enterprises, or of an easy economic recovery, have to be long.
Yet we should share the relief that the attempts are seriously being made and that the economic crisis is not producing an inwardly turned US.
More parochially, the Administration does its best to show that the British link and military involvements are not things it takes for granted: Miliband is on his third encounter with Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.
We know there will be disappointments around the corner and that Mr Obama will have his own feet of clay.But the popularity of an American President is a sign that however cynical we may be about our political class, there is an element in us which wants to believe in the improvability of our democracies and find something to honour and like in those who govern us.
It might seem like a strange week to say so, as we contemplate the grime of venal MPs but the affair has brought home that we can do better than this. Yes, as the man himself put it, we can - and now, we really must.
Reader views (4)
If people were to judge Obama on rhetoric then I agree with Anne McElroy, but if one is seeking Substance, I suspect one will grow jaded as time goes by.
One does not need a long memory to recall the election pledge about Guantanamo bay and the nippy u-turn, quicker than a missed turning on a tomtom
- Gary, Brentwood, 18/05/2009 10:15
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Obama is as mendacious and slippery as the best of politicians. His economic plan will fail miserably, and if he and his economists misjudge, he will destroy the dollar and by extension severly mess up the US economy. I hope he succeeds, for all our sakes, but America threw away its opportunity for renewal when they chose to ignore Ron Paul, one of a very few decent and honest politicians.
- Josh, Doncaster, 18/05/2009 09:15
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I think that Ms McElvoy could be a bit premature with her heart-whole endorsement of Obama. Wait and see - we cannot yet judge the man after his very brief time in power. It would be great if she were to be proven correct but remember "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely"
- Jill Besterman, Jersey, Channel Islands, 18/05/2009 09:15
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Barack Obama may well turn out to be a great leader (he certainly is a great orator) - we will have to wait and see.
But the fact that he is youthful, tall and half black (and not JW Bush) is probably what did it for most American women voters, and the same probably accounts for his popularity amongst the ladies here.
Just be thankful that physical attributes were not the main reason for selecting a leader seventy years ago, or Winston Churchill, the man who saved the world wouldn’t have got a look in!
Modern times, uh?
- Darius Midwinter, London UK, 18/05/2009 09:15
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