It is simply too late to say "sorry". And paying back money filched from the taxpayer doesn't make it any better, either.

Health Minister Phil Hope, who has volunteered to repay some £41,000, seems to think that by doing this his constituents will think better of him and vote for him in droves at the next election (that is, if his local party still allows him to stand).

Paying back such money is simply an admission of guilt of what most people would regard as a criminal offence, not simply a "silly" or "unforgivable" mistake, as so many MPs have ludicrously tried to make out. So, in fact, they make it worse for themselves.

How many of these political magpies would have repaid the money if they hadn't been caught with their trousers down? None.

Would Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, for instance, who is loftily moralising about this whole issue, have forked out the £80 which he has now been humiliated into repaying, for illicit foreign telephone calls? I think not.

The most satisfying thing about this shameful affair is that all these revelations are controlled by the media, which has shown itself to be far more robust in its checks on parliamentary behaviour than the Speaker or anybody else.

The Speaker, indeed, almost seems to condone it. If these disclosures had been controlled by the parliamentary "authorities" as MPs wished, then, I suspect, much of the truth would have been concealed.

And three cheers, incidentally, for the Tory peer Lord Tebbit who has suggested that because of this "spivery" (a good description, that), people should vote for none of the main parties at the forthcoming European elections.

This forced David Cameron, the Conservative Party leader, to warn Lord Tebbit by implication that remarks of that nature might end his membership of the party.

But it was far less than a full-blooded rebuke.

The timid Cameron is only too well aware that Lord Tebbit is still a hugely popular figure in the Tory ranks.

And disciplining him could make more problems for Cameron than it would solve.