Tribune – Comment, news and reviews from Britain's democratic left

I’M A celebrity, get me in there! Vanity has again got the better of Esther Rantzen, with the publicity-mad television “personality” heading for Luton South. It’s not as if the locals haven’t suffered enough already, enduring the dry rot that is Margaret Moran. Now they’ve got the Rantzen circus coming to town.

Mike Ion would like to see the Prime Minister give his personal backing to a ‘coalition of the willing’ to counter the prejudice and poison of the far right

WILL there come a time when we all chuckle about the travails of May 2009 – the month that saw political reputations evaporate and parliamentary careers terminated? So far, the most notable head to roll is that of House of Commons Speaker Michael Martin. He may have escaped the fate of some of his predecessors, who were beheaded – but only just. As the expenses saga wore on, there was increasing, morbid fascination for the lurid details.

There are other parliaments in even more dire need of reform than ours…

YOU know we’re a democracy, which means having all our representatives being accountable? Well, how come 29 Government ministers are members of the House of Lords? That’s the unelected, unaccountable House of Lords. Isn’t that an astonishing number – 29?

THE extraordinary expenses and second home revelations have turned the European elections from the traditional free vote against the Government into something not seen before in modern British politics: a battle between mainstream and extreme. Tory and Labour candidates alike are facing the strongest abuse on the doorsteps that they can remember, while UKIP has undergone a dramatic revival which even a month ago looked impossible.

TO SAY that there is currently a breakdown of trust between politicians and the public is an understatement. It is the underlying theme of the expenses story that has dominated politics for the past few weeks. Although we can assume that Labour, as the governing party, will get more of the blame, the Tories are also suffering. The expenses revelations from the Conservative benches, with houses for ducks, chandeliers, moats to be cleared and moles in the lawn to be dealt with, revive images of the party that David Cameron has been seeking to bury since the day he became leader. It’s rather reminiscent of Night of the Living Dead.