“The Home Secretary is to pay back parliamentary allowances claimed for pay-per-view television services, reportedly including two adult films. Jacqui Smith said she ‘mistakenly’ claimed for the TV package while billing for an internet connection”.

For me, the fact that Jacqui Smith made a simple, and almost certainly genuine, accounting error of bundling a few pay-per-view films into her expenses claim isn’t the story.

The speculation – for it is still disputed whether the films genuinely were porno flix or just films which happened to be certificate 18 – about what kind of films a couple of them were isn’t even the story.

For me, what the story is is the fact that Smith actually thought to claim for the cost of her virgin media telly and internet package as a parliamentary expense at all.

I mean, yes, it’s reasonable for a working politician to be claiming legitimate expenses incurred in the course of doing the job which she wouldn’t otherwise have incurred – such as phone calls, mileage, and even rent (but as far as I’m concerned, absolutely not mortgage) on a second home. And I don’t even object to the notion of MPs and Ministers being paid a decent salary for what is – no matter how what one thinks of politicians – after all an intense job, with long hours, little thanks, and a great deal of responsibility for getting it wrong.

But claiming for your internet connexion? And your cable telly package? Has she also claimed for her telly license as well? And more to the point, given that it’s supposed to be her second home, at which she only spends two or three days a week, has she only claimed 3/5ths of the bill, or does she have the even bigger cheek to be claiming the whole thing?

It’s this kind of thing which well and truly brings the whole system of expenses, and the reputation of politicians into severe disrepute. Does she really think the public are stupid enough to believe that if she wasn’t an MP she wouldn’t have telly and the internet at home? Claiming as an expense something she would have anyway, which doesn’t have any extra usage charges (like eg a phone bill) is shockingly and arrogantly taking the mickey out of us all; it is the epitome of the noses-in-the-trough reputation that politicians have only themselves to blame for.

Jacqui Smith is the one who’s got caught – almost certainly because the media guns are clearly out for her. How many others are taking the mickey in the same way?