Muammar Al Khadafi

Accused expenses fraudster former Labour MP Margaret Moran, appeared in court today and wept as she stood accused of swindling expenses worth around £80,000.

56 year old Moran, former MP for Luton South, is accused of an array of charges, including 15 charges of false accounting.

It is alleged that she falsely claimed £22,500 for treatment of dry rot at her Southampton home, submitted forged invoices, and flipped her designated second home so that she could make claims for multiple properties.

During her appearance in City of Westminster Magistrates Court she spoke only to confirm her name and address, and was seen to be openly crying into a handkerchief.

She has been suspended by the Labour Party since the allegations came to light.

Moran is due to appear in Southwark Crown Court on October 28.

If previous expenses fraud cases are anything to go by then it's the taxpayer who paid for all these expenses who ought to be crying, not just for the ones who got away lightly but also for the ones who got away altogether.

9 months prison, serve around 10-12 weeks in the prison systems equivalent of Butlins, and then get out utterly free aside from having to wear an electronic tag for a few months seems to be the order of the day.

Still, tears may sway a judge. Many public figures who swindle the public seem to be penitent and tearful, not to mention suddenly find themselves in ill health - when they're caught.

A survey conducted on behalf of the Committee on Standards in Public Life has warned that public confidence in MPs has plummeted in recent years.

No shock there then. A catalogue of broken pledges, expenses cheats out early after slap on the wrist sentences, illegal wars on the go, a country in tatters, a political culture where soundbites take precedence over substance, we could go on forever here.

Just 26% of people now believe that MPs are dedicated to doing a good job for the electorate, down on 46% from the last survey in 2008.

Again, 26% of people think that MPs are competent at their jobs, a fall of 10% from the last survey.

Whether they tell the truth - well, you know the old saying you can fool some of the people.....it's down from 26% to 20%. If their lips are moving then beware might be sound advice for the remaining 20%.

Only 15% of people believe that MPs are in touch with the public, down from 29%.

Much of the fall in public confidence is attributed to ongoing fallout from the expenses scandal, but it is far more than that as mentioned earlier.

It's, well, everything to be honest.

There is something fundamentally rotten with the system, and with politicians, and the result is lost public confidence and huge voter apathy.

Between the three main parties there seems little to choose, they're career politicians with minor cosmetic differences, no real substance to any of them.

Like or loathe Lib/Lab/Con a few decades in the past, at least they had some distinct identity from one another. Now, they all seem to have converged, and they've seemingly met on all the points that will continue to do Britain harm.

It's like we're going through the motions, just trading faces in high places with little in the way of tangible benefits for the British people.

The three party political system has become farce where the only question at an election is who are going to be the faces that continue Britain on the road to ruin, and who is going to enjoy a cushy five years with their hands deep in the expenses swag bag.

Decades of Labour and Tory playing trading places, with the Liberal Democrats - at least until now when they've got the one and only bite of the government cherry they'll ever get - as the always third place party, has failed, and total loss of public confidence in those whom we must trust to run our nation is the result.

Uniquely, we've seen in a few short years all three of those parties in action holding the reins of power - the disastrous Blair/Brown years for Labour, and now the comatose coalition of ConDem - and we don't like what we see.

It's no wonder Britain has no confidence in politicians, and we're unlikely to regain any until we stop going through the motions and keeping on electing the usual suspects.

We know they've let us down time after time, we know nothing will change with them in power, how can we have any confidence in that?