The Sketch: Something for nothing? You can't tempt an MP with that

Think of the chaos and calumnies of the last weeks. MPs' expenses, SATs, smearing, G20 manslaughter, police raids in Parliament, the crash, the crunch, the public finances, what a field to choose from without even having to turn to the Shrine to the Unknown Scandal. Every heart must have been in patriotic uproar – and yet all morning we had to endure an ecclesiastical calm over Parliament.

That was partly because there wasn't anybody there. They don't like to be there on Thursdays. But even so, you'd think they could have left a little lamentation in the corridors. A head on a pike wouldn't have hurt. It is the end of an era, after all.

Alan Duncan's dinner-party relationship with Harriet Harman isn't large enough to encompass these large civic emotions. Never mind, he's obviously up to something, twinkling and flirting with her at Business Questions (you need quite a strong stomach to watch it in the flesh).

To his credit, his cosiness lured her into a semi-humorous defence of the Prime Minister's plan for "interim reform" of MPs' expenses. Anything less than die-in-a-ditch-for-Gordon used to equal treason (but that was then).

Half way through her six-point exposition, Harriet laughingly asked the Speaker to put her "out of her misery" by shutting her up. Her deputy passed her a note saying "brevity is the soul of wit" (unless he meant Alan Duncan). But she made it clear that while it was her job to carry the can, it certainly wasn't her can, and she found the can contents quite odorous.

There'll be a backstage brouhaha because the PM's reputation is involved, and next week's Bill is in Harriet's name. Will it fail? It might. And Hattie wouldn't mind if it did.

David Heath called the proposal a "daily banker-style bonus". David Winnick said: "What are we supposed to do? Pocket the money even though we haven't spent it?"

Talk about a something-for- nothing culture; the PM is undermining himself a little more quickly every week.

Consider someone like John Mann who lives an ascetic London life in a £600-a-month rented flat. His virtuous example is to be despised by a general backhander given to all MPs which will give the Commons' husband and wife teams £50k a year with no questions asked. You could borrow £2m with that. Good grief, even Nicholas Winterton spoke against it!

And a little-remarked point – MPs' staff are to go on the House of Commons payroll, and get those El Dorado pension rights. Gordon's last great claim to be the Master and Commander of Every Last Detail looks more tattered every day.

simoncarr@sketch.sc