The current furore over MPs expenses has seen resentment bubbling to the surface. Or perhaps, simmered knowingly by media outlets eager for a paper-flogging witch hunt. As ever, watching the range of public reactions filtered through traditional and new media channels with agendas of their own is simultaneously fascinating, frustrating, utterly predictable and head-scratchingly hilarious.

Spotted on the tube this morning, the Daily Mail calling on their lynch-mob-on-permanent-standby readership to prepare the pires on Parly Sq, with the headline ‘BRING THEM TO JUSTICE.’ Surely this has more to do with quietly institutionalised extravagance (which the more astute among us must have already suspected, no?) than individual corruption, but that wouldn’t make for quite such a heads-on-the-block story, would it?

Head-scratchingly hilarious comes from the Telegraph, who broke the story. It’s more than a little weird to see not exactly the most left leaning of our papers invoking the spirit of the Interregnum and our brief stint as a British republic, even calling upon Cromwell himself to provoke a Parliamentary purging.

The cuddlier regional press have understandably focused on their own MPs indiscretions, leading the Grimsby Telegraph to tut ‘LOCAL MPS IN A PICKLE.’ One of the chief Grimsby grievances is 68p claimed for a jar of Branston’s finest. Those commentators who call for a reality check for MPs should note Cleethorpes and Immingham MP Shona McIsaac, who likens the House of Commons to Hogwarts…. no doubt she’ll be delivering her cheque via messenger owl.

If the Commons is Hogwarts then the role of Professor Snape falls squarely to a Mr.Speaker, who’s looking increasingly brow-beaten, particularly in self-styled champagne anarchist Mark Thomas’ fuming editorial for the Guardian.

There’s a very British cynicism coming out in all of this, as illustrated by spoof sites like Youclaim.org.uk which turns the tables on MPs allowing members of the public to claim for everything from Country Life membership to a Burberry Dog Gilet (Khaki.)

Sidenote: Ludicrous as it is, anyone who is genuinely red faced with fury over the misuse of public funds for this Eastleigh MP’s trouser press would do well to note this little receipt still lingering on the tax accounts book. Yes, that’s 4.5 Billion pounds.