Owen Paterson’s escape shows that the sleaze era is back | Martin Kettle

Despite the former minister being found in clear breach of lobbying rules, Tory MPs have stepped back to the corrupt past

Remember the collective shock that greeted the murder of David Amess less than a month ago? Back then, devastated parliamentarians of all stripes queued up to mourn their slain colleague as a victim of violent and unjustified public contempt towards working MPs.

Yet now, many of the same parliamentarians have taken a giant’s stride away from that reflective mood. Instead they have invited the public to stoke its contempt afresh. Not content with dismissing the motion to suspend the Conservative MP Owen Paterson over breaches of lobbying rules, today MPs overturned the entire system of parliamentary standards in place since the sleaze crisis of the 1990s. They did it, what’s more, with the government’s explicit encouragement.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian associate editor and columnist

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