To an ancient Greek, nothing was more precious than honour (tîmê). The root of this word was financial – what you were worth. And what you were worth was judged not so much by your own values (note ‘value’) as by other people’s assessment of you. By that token, ‘honourable’ Members of Parliament should by now be quietly slinking shamefacedly away down the back alleys (as the poet Pindar said of a wrestler humiliated in Games held at Delphi). Officials in democratic Athens who had so transparently exploited the people would not be so lucky.

Most officials in Athens were appointed by lot and for one year only. They did not serve an elected parliament but the whole citizen body (Athenian males over 18), meeting roughly every week in Assembly. This body was sovereign, deciding every course of state action. The same people also had total control over the courts.

Each official had to report regularly to the people, and could be arraigned at any time. At the end of his term, the people subjected him to a full audit. Within thirty days of laying down office, he presented his financial accounts (public funds received and expended), which were checked against documents in the state archives. That test passed, a board heard any charges of general misconduct. There were penalties for e.g. breaking the law, taking bribes, embezzlement, and so on. Punishments could range from fines through exile to execution. It never stopped Athenians putting themselves forward.

The contrast with our Parliament, which resists to the death any outside interference, could not be starker. Lacking any sense of shame, MPs and the Speaker tried desperately to prevent information about expenses appearing in the first place. Now that it has, they demonstrate their liberation from guilt by indignantly claiming they ‘have not broken any [of their own] rules’. Well they wouldn’t, would they? Instead, they hypocritically proclaim their desperate longing to change the system. Is this what Gordon Brown means by ‘British values’? It is not what anyone else means by it.

Far from slinking down back alleys, ancient Greeks caught like this would be fleeing the country. And MPs? All bets are off.

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