There were very few truly honest moments in the debate on MPs’ pay and expenses. My favourite was when the Liberal Democrat Simon Hughes fixed his gaze on Harriet Harman and fumed: “It’s easy for the Government to say, ‘Hold back, everybody!’ Everybody in the Government is paid more than everybody else by a significant amount! Seriously, I make a practical household point!”

Harriet Harman (salary £138,724) looked peeved as she observed Mr Hughes (salary £61,820). So selfish! So small-minded! Here was the Government trying to save the reputation of nothing less than democracy and here was Mr Hughes talking filthy lucre. I could almost feel her shiver with disgust.

At that moment, things didn’t look great for Hattie “Hairshirt” Harman. She had argued her case for MPs to wear heavier and hairier hairshirts with all the passion of a dead fish. No one spoke in her favour. The whips, supposedly not working, were everywhere.

David Maclean, the veteran Tory who has multiple sclerosis, arose out of his rather snazzy burgundy wheelchair. “Over the years I have taken pay freezes, pay cuts, and a fat lot of good it did us!” he cried.

He urged MPs to take the money. They deserved it for they earned less than a head teacher (£71,000), a police superintendent (£68,000) and a colonel (£69,000). MPs also worked much harder. Who else put in 70 to 80 hours a week? Mr MacLean then allowed that a colonel serving in Afghanistan may also work long hours.

It was a magnificent exercise in self-delusion and was followed by an even better one by Don Touhig. MPs’ pay was so dire that you needed private means to be an MP. “I am the son of a miner. My mother was a home help . . . I would never have got here on the basis of independent means!”

Can he be serious? I think so. It was something of a surprise when MPs voted for Harriet’s hairshirt pay plan. I’m not sure how that happened (the answer lies with the whips). But Mr Touhig wasn’t beaten yet. His next target was the plan to clean up MPs’ expenses. The idea was for MPs to allow independent consultants to audit their constituency offices. “If we accept this,” he said, “consultants will be checking on whether a member in the North of Scotland spends too much on paper clips or whether a member for the South West could have bought toilet paper for his office staff cheaper at the Coop than in Tesco.”

MPs nodded as if this were even a remotely sensible thing to say. Mr Touhig then explained that taxpayers would not want MPs to throw away money on these consultants. Surely MPs could audit their own expenses? Incredibly, MPs actually voted for this. Truly, they are living in a different world from the rest of us - and it’s furnished by John Lewis.

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