A cheap punk and now a dirty criminal? That's the (ex) leader of Essex County Council for you

The Director of Public Prosecutions has announced that three Labour MPs and one Conservative peer will face criminal charges for theft in connection with fiddled expenses claims.

The three Labour MPs are Elliot Morley, David Chaytor and Jim Devine - all pretty much no-mark has-beens. But the real excitement here is Paul White aka Lord Hanningfield - Tory front bench industry spokesperson in the Lords and leader of the hard-right Essex County Council, at least until he resigned from both positions today.

A cheaper punk than Hanningfield would be hard to find. Essex County Council is a disgrace, a gang of cheap greedy killers who slash council services while making sure that their own offices are as comfortable as possible. The voters in this county is, sadly, a bunch of morons who thinks that voting this bunch of lame-ass Thatcherite bastards into the council with huge majorities makes some kind of statement against Westminster, when in fact all it does is make Essex a worse and worse place to live.

I hope so much that White goes down. It won't be easy, because the expenses regulations were so lax that it was difficult to break them. Difficult but not impossible, and he could face up to seven years in jail if convicted. That'll be an occasion to crack open the budget Cava. Hey, to quote Jeffrey Lebowski, I might even "do a J".