On a winter’s evening in early January this year, weak light was streaming through the windows of a restaurant in London’s Mayfair. Sir Stuart Bell, member of parliament for Middlesbrough – one of Britain’s poorest towns – had already started his glass of champagne and was ordering foie gras on brioche. Mid-order, the Labour MP cocked his head towards the young waitress and delivered a quip. “Do you know that when they write that Marie Antoinette said ‘let them eat cake’, it is a misquote?” he asked. “She actually said, ‘let them eat brioche’.”

A few days later, Bell was one of many to find his name in the newspapers as indignation at the privileged lives of Britain’s politicians increased. He got away with just a mention but the metaphorical guillotine was rolled out for transgressors, such as Derek Conway, the Conservative MP caught employing his son – a student living 300 miles from London – as a researcher, handing over nearly £45,000 of public money for little or no work. The Conway scandal was the beginning of an all-out media trawl over MPs’ pay, perks and rarefied lifestyle. For an increasingly cynical British public, which is voting in ever-lower numbers (turnout in the 2005 general election was 61 per cent, down from 71 per cent in 1997 and 83 per cent in 1950), such stories cemented a sense of disenchantment.