Ten years since the MPs’ expenses scandal, one thing is clear – it paved the way for Brexit

Born of the same feeling of dissatisfaction and neglect that gave us the 2016 EU referendum, we’re still guiltily projecting moral failures of our own onto MPs, vilifying them for human frailties we are all prone to

The damage has been cancerous, if you think about how our politics has evolved since (Getty)

Do you remember the duck house?

Rightly, it has become the abiding symbol of the parliamentary expenses scandal. This was a story that broke a decade ago: it had then, and has even today, a corrosive effect on the public’s view of our elected representatives, and democracy itself.

The floating – no less – elegant lodgings for domestic fowl that Sir Peter Viggers, the honourable member for Gosport, had installed in his garden pond said it all.