by RAY FLEMING
AT one moment you are dealing with a dozen of the world's leaders on a global economic crisis and at the next you have to fend-off the feral press who want a statement about the TV porn movies bill which your Home Secretary's husband inadvertently included on her expenses claim. That's politics. Often enough it's the trivial thing or the cover-up that will bring a prime minister or a president down rather than affairs of state.
In the Jacqui Smith case Gordon Brown is not in any immediate trouble; his statement about it stopped short of any expression of complete confidence and she will have noticed this. He could not have asked for her resignation on the eve of the G20 meeting for which the Home Office carries responsibility for much of the security. It is probably odds-on that she will be moved sideways or out at the next Cabinet reshuffle. She now has two strikes against her over allowance claims; in one, her London accommodation arrangements, she can say she followed the rules but some will think she did so almost to breaking point; for the movies she has apologised and paid the bill.
There have now been enough of these expenses exposures - and more are promised- to make it absolutely clear that the system and the people who run it need changing from top to bottom before we pay the price of seeing cynicism take over from scepticism about our parliamentary democracy.