"I acted within the rules"

Every news bulletin at the moment includes politicians walking quickly away from the cameras saying "I acted within the rules".

"I acted within the rules" has become an incessant mantra, as if by repeating this incantation the inconvenient questions can be finessed away.

But the rules say: take what you want, as much as you want, as often as you want. Go on, take what you want, no-one will see you. Go on, you can't get caught.

Unfortunately for them ("them") they have been caught.

And so we are reading about a Tory grandee using taxpayers' money to install chandeliers at his country mansion. Silken cushions purchased to ease the posterior of Keith Vaz. A complicated tax fiddle (but a fiddle within the rules!) whereby the Communities Secretary's main residence is simultaneously not her main residence.

Sometimes (but not very often) a claim is refused. I would like to know why the bathrobe claimed by the Culture Secretary was thrown out. What was it about this bathrobe that could not be countenanced?

Politicians (all parties) are supposedly in despair about what to do about this morass (one that is threatening to suck them all in and smother them). I am surprised that no-one has suggested the obvious solution. Pay the money back.