The May 2009 parliamentary expenses scandal was a remarkable episode in British politics. Day after day, the newspapers, led by the Daily Telegraph, were filled with lurid details of MPs’ past expenses claims, many of which had been made in contravention of the spirit, if not the letter, of the rules (Winnett and Raynor 2009). The remorseless media coverage suggested widespread impropriety at the heart of democratic life and triggered an explosion of apparent outrage at politicians’ conduct. One seasoned commentator compared the goings-on with the condition of British politics in the late eighteenth century and described them as ‘the new corruption’ (King 2009). For another, the expenses scandal was ‘the biggest crisis of legitimacy for a century’ to hit the country (Kenny 2009: 504).

Perhaps inevitably, the expenses scandal reinvigorated a long-standing debate about standards in British public life and what people could expect of their politicians. It also led to the creation of yet another ethical regulator, in this case the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), whose grand title masked a narrower remit of paying and overseeing MPs’ salaries and expenses. The scandal was, in both respects, merely the latest in a series of similar events that have occurred recently in Britain. In keeping with an established pattern, the shock and outrage that greeted the allegations of misconduct were soon followed by introspection and then institutional reforms intended to restore public confidence in politics. But if previous reforms were anything to go by, the latest changes were unlikely to transform levels of trust. Britons did not suddenly come to see their elected representatives as dishonest in May 2009; they had long regarded them in this way (Newell 2008).