The response to this week's publication of MPs' expenses was met locally with a response so predictable that I didn't even bother predicting it.

The story is that our MP, Laura Moffatt, now has the second-highest level of expenses in the county after being just about the lowest last year.  The criticism is so facile and predictable that I can barely summon up the will to counter it.

First of all, one reason why the expenses are so high is that they now include the cost of renting a flat up in London.  OK, the expenses scheme always included this, but previously Laura came home every day. Since then Parliament voted to end the experiment in having sensible family-friendly hours and go back to the old style of letting meetings run on into the night. 

I don't know why the old-school MPs prefer to keep these sorts of hours. I'm sure some of them like to have a good excuse to stay up in London and not go home, for whatever reason.  I think it contributes to having MPs get sucked into the whole 'Westminster Village' atmosphere and lose a lot of their connection with their constituency – home counties MPs anyway: those from further afield really have no choice.

Actually it does occur to me that many MPs have other jobs like directorships or being a solicitor, underwriter or magazine editor and it suits them very well to have government business shifted to the evenings so they are free to do the day job.  I do know that it makes life hard for mothers, women generally and anyone else who has a family they want to see.

The other expenses relate entirely to the workload.  I heard a story of Laura comparing notes with other MPs. When she mentioned the number of letters and phone calls she gets they were astonished.  I can't remember the numbers but she gets more letters per week than some MPs get in a month.

Of course these letters need to be replied to, and the phone needs to be answered. If that did not happen you can imagine the comments about that!  Do we expect an MP to spend hours in Parliament and other meetings, attending every event going in the constituency, and studying to keep abreast of everything and also be able to answer their phone and type up all the replies?  If follows that you need staff to handle the correspondence and the more of it there is the more staff you need.

The clue is in the name – "expenses".  This is what it costs to run an MP's office. It is easy to point at the large salary of an MP but if it costs £140,000 to carry out a job you can't expect them to pay those costs out of a £60,000 (before tax) salary.

If the people of Crawley want to see an MP who costs less then they should get one who does not answer their mail and thus encourage more constituents to write in.  Thats the answer – get an MP who doesn't do anything for the constituency, does not keep their constituents informed, and… oh hang on… they had that before didn't they?

There are always some MPs who, frankly, take the piss.  They will employ their family out of the staff allowance up to the full amount, regardless of whether they do anything. I don't think it is common, but those are the stories which are remembered and everyone else gets tainted by association, and that is a shame.  I don't always agree with everything Laura has done, or every vote which she has taken [*], but I have seen her at work in the office, in surgeries, in London, and just about everywhere and cannot imagine anybody working harder.   As for money, I have seen her dip into her own pocket many times to cover things which she should have claimed for.

The bottom line is that letters do not answer themselves. 

[*] That may not have been put very well – it makes it sounds like I am always disagreeing with her, which is not the case.  In fact, since she is better-informed than I am, if I do disagree it probably because I am wrong.