WE have a new word in popular currency – redaction, meaning to blank out text in a document.

In the case of MPs they have redacted on their expenses forms all that would have led us to understand their wholesale abuse of expenses and allowances.

If it wasn’t for someone blowing the whistle we the public would have no idea that MPs, from cabinet members to backbenchers were quietly taking as much as they could, they thought, quietly get away with.

Doesn’t this show the double standards of so many MPs? What people do when they think no-one is looking.

And these double standards are deeply rooted in our culture – the higher you go the lower you go, into rotten cultures populated by greedy operators.

And these are the MPs from whom we expect integrity and honesty of the highest order.

But when the lid comes off their lives what we see is self-interest and greed – despite their pathetic attempts to redact and hide.

Isn’t this so Richard Nixon, redacting his tapes?

But this time not one man, now a whole herd.

Jeff Williams, Jubilee Road Branksome