Another day, another troughing MP in the news:

Mrs Laing faced widespread criticism for not paying £180,000 capital gains tax on the sale of two Westminster flats, on which she made a £1m profit.

And, of course, the oft-quoted mantra is there:

This practice is perfectly legal but has been heavily criticised.

Of course. Perfectly legal, but morally reprehensible. That's A-Ok then. Well, actually, it turns out that her constituency party think it is:

Conservative MP Eleanor Laing has survived a vote of confidence by her constituency party after criticism of her conduct over expenses.

Apparently 83% of those who voted wanted her to carry on. Fair enough. She'll now go forward to the verdict of the voters. Which I'm hopeful will lead to her being told to fuck right off.

But this is rather the point of the whole exposure of the MPs' expenses. It shows us just how much our MPs are costing us, and allows us - the electorate, the people these fuckers are meant to be representing - the chance to decide whether they offer us value for money. Before the revelations over expenses, we were not in a position to make those sort of choices. Now we can. And I'll be disappointed if this sort of candidate is returned to parliament after the next election, but at least the electorate will have been empowered to make a judgment call about whether there MP is actually worth the money they've fleeced taken from the public purse.