The performance of the senior MEPs who are trying very hard indeed to limit access to a damaging report on MEPs’ possible abuse of expenses is at once revealing and disturbing on so many levels that one scarcely knows where to start offering a view on it.

Suffice for now to say that one of the deepest moral ideas underpinning Western civilisation is the idea that citizens agree to give some of our hard-earned money to the government on trust to spend these funds as far as possible wisely – but also unambiguously honestly.

If it starts to look as if our representatives are unable to resist the tempation sneakily to grab a slice of that money for their own benefit, this central – even civilizational – element of trust is bound to erode.

Hence we might think that we are entitled to expect our elected representatives (who in financial terms do not do badly in the great scheme of things) to fall over themselves to come clean if there is any suspicion or accusation of impropriety in this respect.

Yet in this case we get exactly the opposite. All manner of exotic hi-tech and procedural arrangements are being made to limit public access to and scrutiny of an internal EU auditors report.

Why the frantic attempts at damage limitation? Maybe behind various technical excuses the true reason is political: "we cannot make this report available to the public if we want people to vote in the European elections next year". 

True enough, no doubt.

S.2 of our 2006 Fraud Act is quite easy to follow:

Fraud by false representation

(1) A person is in breach of this section if he—

(a) dishonestly makes a false representation, and

(b) intends, by making the representation—

(i) to make a gain for himself or another, or

(ii) to cause loss to another or to expose another to a risk of loss.

(2) A representation is false if—

(a) it is untrue or misleading, and

(b) the person making it knows that it is, or might be, untrue or misleading.

(3) “Representation” means any representation as to fact or law, including a representation as to the state of mind of—

(a) the person making the representation, or

(b) any other person.

(4) A representation may be express or implied.

(5) For the purposes of this section a representation may be regarded as made if it (or anything implying it) is submitted in any form to any system or device designed to receive, convey or respond to communications (with or without human intervention).

There follow further pellucid definitions of how fraud is committed by Failing to Disclose Information and Abuse of Position.

Possible abuse of expenses by either some of our own members of Parliament or some MEPs looks to be covered by this language.

When might the arrests start?