Tory MP Andrew MacKay quit his post as parliamentary aide to David Cameron today. If you enjoy watching the predictable soap opera that is British politics then you’ll know this is just another token gesture on behalf of the establishment, in order to placate an angry public.

What is it that has the public so up in arms? Proof, once again, that Lord Eden’s famous “power corrupts” line is an uncanny observation. MacKay, like many, many others, has taken an unwarranted, personal, monetary advantage from his position of serving the public i.e. he’s another one that’s ripped us off.

In a matter of weeks, maybe even days, when the intensity of 24hr news shifts elsewhere, MacKay’s name will be largely forgotten like so many other walk-on parts. Soon after, he’ll probably be offered a better job, by way of a thank you for taking a hit for the team and the main characters can reappear with less ‘controversial’ storylines.

Oh, Brown and Cameron though, those two people who are most responsible to the public and therefore most accountable, need only apologise and pay a little back when they can.

You might think that because of the large amounts MacKay ripped the public off for, he has a specific duty to quit and apologise. This is the facade you’ll find propagated in the main stream press, this is the view provided for them by the politicians, this has become the poor level of expectation we have in our representatives.

We need to see MacKay as an admission of guilt on behalf of the MPs as a whole, the establishment. Not be taken in by a mere gesture, which only panders to the surface of the problem. We shouldn’t let them subtly resign corruption to a minor thread in the narrative.

There is of course THE blag, which has been propagated by our corruptible politicians: “We worked to within the letter of the law but perhaps, at times, not within the spirit of it.” They pay themselves, they make the rules and now, thanks to the resignation of MacKay, they’ve admitted gross negligence.

Instead of sweeping it under the carpet, a democratic facade, with proposals of weak reforms, random resignations and empty apologies; hadn’t we better demand an immediate General Election?

All MPs should be judged, not by each other but by the public – You and I, the very people whose money it was that they spunked. Why do our servants feel that they must live better off than us?