Americans are beginning to notice that there is a fairly spectacular upheaval going on in British politics. US papers have covered the Westminster expenses scandal mostly through tales of petty acquisitiveness. Douglas Hogg’s use of taxpayer money to dredge a moat, tune a piano and clean stables has drawn particular attention. Sir Peter Viggers’s claim for a duck house has been another favourite. Gordon Brown’s payment of £6,000 to his brother for a shared cleaner has the advantage of a familiar protagonist. No one has been accused of a crime, but with a dozen careers ended already and projections that 50, 100, even half of all MPs could ultimately be forced out it is understandable that the word “revolution” is being thrown around.

To an American, the outrage is understandable. It is also excessive and dangerous. If one can imagine removing half of MPs over misusing a mis-designed expense system, the centrepiece of which is a second-home deduction that costs the average citizen 20p a year, then British democracy is much more accountable than it looks and possibly more accountable than it ought to be. It is hard to imagine anything in US politics that would result in the kind of turnover that Britons are now contemplating, short of a terrorist conspiracy hatched on Capitol Hill. The largest congressional shift in the past generation, forced by an angry public in the wake of President Bill Clinton’s early missteps and Ross Perot’s heavily funded populist crusade, was the Republican gain of 55 congressional seats – a bit less than 12 per cent – in 1994.