Martha Kearney's week

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"I was made redundant and am on Job Seekers' Allowance. The government tells me that I can live on £50 a week ... why can't the MPs live on this as well?

"They get a good wage for their main homes and I don't see why they can't practice what they preach!"

Ms Kirkbride and Ms Moran both say they will be standing down

That was one email we received this week.

Here is another: "I have just been listening to the news about Julie Kirkbride and having been a working mother myself I understand only too well the difficulties.

"However when ordinary working mothers receive little or no financial help from the state for their childcare costs, why should an MP be the exception?

"My son and his wife have had no such help, they do not earn huge salaries and have had to struggle to pay mortgage and childcare costs for our 18-month-old grandson.

"Our daughter-in-law had to go back to work within six months of giving birth. She is a manager in the care sector dealing with young adults with learning difficulties and is often on call 24 hours a day - just as difficult and stressful as an MP. "

Food claims

Many of the complaints we have received are along the same lines.

It is often not the most controversial claims like payments for non-existent mortgages which have provoked people's fury.

It is the idea that MPs are so out of touch with ordinary lives that they can claim for food, for instance, which everyone else has to pay for.

That was certainly Paul Kenny's view on the programme this week.

Some MPs have decided to fall on their swords, sometimes two at a time <a class="" href="/1/hi/uk_politics/8070742.stm">MPs Kirkbride and Moran to quit</a> <a class="" href="/1/hi/uk_politics/8039273.stm">Key details: MP expenses claims</a>

His union the GMB is one of Labour's biggest donors.

The general secretary said that he would be "shocked" if at least 50 Labour MPs were not forced to stand down and he warned that Cabinet ministers must not be exempt from scrutiny.

"You can't have one rule for backbenchers and another for people who are the political elite of government."

He said that he expected significant numbers of MPs from both the main parties would have to stand down by the time of the next general election.

'Outrageous' abuse

"If that is less than 20% of the current number of MPs I will be quite shocked," he said.

A big donor on the Conservative side too was very angry. Lord Kalms, a former party treasurer also told us that more MPs would have to be forced to stand down.

"That was just a starting point. Some of the claims were so outrageous as to be an abuse of the system."

He went on: "It's deeply distressing, very disturbing, it's a total breakdown of the principle of governance.

"It's not sufficient to say 'I kept within a certain set of rules', particularly when the rules were very loose and very easy to abuse.

"It was quite clear time and time again that MPs were taking advantage of a very loose rulebook.

"This is not sufficient for leadership. Leadership has to have a broader understanding of morality and ethics, and that was totally lacking in so many cases."

Some MPs have decided to fall on their swords, sometimes two at a time.

That made Thursday's programme exciting for us. Rumours began circulating just after 12.30pm that Julie Kirkbride was going to make a statement.

That news came through in the middle of an interview with the Conservative MP Maria Miller.

She told me that after what had happened to Julie Kirkbride, she had decided not to take a second homes allowance because of the potential media attention on her family.

Moments later came news that the Labour MP Margaret Moran was also standing down.

Esther Rantzen then popped up to say that she was still considering contesting the seat as an independent.

And what if a controversial MP decides to stay? Some campaign groups are demanding the power of recall which means that a certain number of signatures could trigger a by-election.

That worked to great effect in California when the incumbent governor was forced out, terminated by Arnie Schwarzenegger.

Interestingly Justice Secretary Jack Straw told us on Tuesday that the idea was worth looking at. Just imagine how many by-elections there could be at the moment.

That is all for this week. We will have a special one-hour programme next Friday to look at the local election results and what is bound to be interesting political reaction.

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