Such laments were repeated a hundred times in the Palace of Westminster last week as once-proud parliamentarians contemplated the demolition of their careers and the trashing of the Commons as an institution. Amid publication of the excesses and abuses of MPs’ expenses, the mother of parliaments stood revealed as the mother of all fiddles.

Phantom mortgages, moat cleaning, antique rugs, £8,000 television sets, gardening bills, horse manure, flipping, double-dipping and plain ripping off — the politicians who lay down the laws of the land were shown to be all too grasping and vain. Heads began to roll.

Shahid Malik, the justice minister, resigned pending an inquiry into the peppercorn rent he was paying to a constituency landlord while claiming £66,000 on his London home. Elliot Morley, a senior backbencher, was stripped of the Labour whip after “forgetting” that he had paid off his mortgage and improperly claiming more than £16,000.

Yesterday brought more humiliation. Sir Gerald Kaufman, the veteran Labour MP, had charged the taxpayer £1,851 for a rug imported from a New York antiques centre and had tried to claim £8,865 for a plasma television set. Tam Dalyell, the former Father of the House, had attempted to claim £18,000 for bookcases two months before he retired as an MP.

More seriously, David Chaytor, a backbencher, was suspended from the parliamentary Labour party after admitting an “unforgivable error” in claiming £13,000 for a mortgage he had already repaid. His constituents in Bury North were aghast. One said: “People have been jailed for less than that.” Another added: “I think they should be sacked. It’s across the whole spectrum, it’s everybody, not just one party.”

Indeed it is. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, was forced to sack Andrew Mackay, his senior political adviser, after he and his wife, a fellow Tory MP, had claimed allowances for both their main and second homes.

Yesterday it emerged that Anthony Steen, a Tory grandee, had claimed tens of thousands of pounds on his country estate, including the cost of a forestry expert to inspect his trees. Like others, Steen merely blamed the system: “It is not a question of feeling we have done something wrong. It is just the system which is wrong.”

Last night MPs who had tried to block the disclosure of expenses faced criticism as details of their own claims were revealed. David Maclean, a former Conservative chief whip who introduced a bill that would have exempted MPs from freedom of information laws, had spent thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money renovating a family home that was subsequently sold for £750,000.

Julian Lewis, another Tory, and two Labour MPs, David Clelland and Fraser Kemp, who supported the bill, also made claims for several thousands of pounds under the second home allowance. Kemp was reported last night as saying some of his purchases had been made in error and he would be paying back some money.

Two dozen MPs from all parties have so far paid back more than £145,000 for expenses claims that do not stand up to public scrutiny — from repairs to a swimming pool and designer furniture to mole hunting.

The scandal is tearing through Westminster like a tornado, even at cabinet level. Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, appears fatally compromised over her dubious claims. Hazel Blears, the communities secretary, has become a national joke over hers — oh, I’ve done nothing wrong, she breezes, but here’s a cheque for £13,000. Both women now face the sack when Gordon Brown reshuffles the cabinet, which he is expected to do after the European elections next month.

Voters are so outraged that MPs have become figures of ridicule. One Tory MP said he went into his local butcher to buy a leg of lamb only to be told: “I suppose you’ll be charging this to the taxpayer.” Other customers began pointing and laughing, leaving the backbencher, who normally has plenty to say for himself, speechless.

Julie Kirkbride, wife of the shamed Mackay, had a brick thrown through the window of her Worcestershire constituency office. “This has been Westminster’s 9/11,” said one minister. “Not even a terrorist bomb in the Commons could have quite the effect that this expenses scandal has had on the fabric of parliament.”

This weekend the damage done is so grave that the holder of one of the key posts in parliament is facing rebellion. Michael Martin, the Speaker of the House of Commons, who oversees MPs’ expenses and presides over Commons proceedings, has lost support on all sides. Many MPs believe his failures in handling the crisis have fatally undermined his position and some are preparing a motion of no confidence that could force him to resign.

Douglas Carswell, a maverick Conservative backbencher leading the revolt, said: “We have to rebuild a new kind of politics which is more transparent.” Carswell had voluntarily published all his expenses before the present furore erupted.

Others are resigning themselves to their political demise. Many Labour MPs whose dodgy expenses claims have been revealed know they will now lose their seats at the next general election. Tory grandees accused of using taxpayers’ money to improve their country estates may decide to give up the game rather than confront the shame on the re-election trail.

Other members are just plain terrified. The Commons bars are doing a roaring trade as MPs settle their nerves with a stiff drink — also subsidised by the taxpayer. “People are partying like it is Weimar Berlin,” said one Labour MP. “You know an era is about to come to an end, so you might as well enjoy the time you have left. Everybody is just dreading the lunchtime telephone call from a journalist and those simple words, ‘I’d like to talk about your expenses’.”

LAST Monday attention turned to the Conservative party. Its members had escaped the initial onslaught when The Daily Telegraph, a Tory newspaper, began publishing details of MPs’ expenses after obtaining computerised files of all their claims since 2004. Labour ministers and backbenchers had been the first to be exposed.

Last week it became clear that Tories were just as likely to abuse their expenses as their often poorer Labour counterparts. It emerged that David Willetts, the shadow universities secretary, nicknamed “Two Brains” for his intelligence, could not change a lightbulb: instead he had claimed £115 to have 25 of them changed at his second home in London.

Michael Gove, the shadow schools secretary, had claimed £7,000 on furniture, spending a third of the money at a central London store owned by Lady Astor, Cameron’s mother-in-law.

Cameron, who was campaigning that day in Derbyshire, was appalled and began pondering his response. On the train home his aides picked up word that worse was to come the following morning. Douglas Hogg, the former agriculture secretary, had claimed £2,000 for cleaning a moat on his Lincolnshire estate. It threatened to undo all Cameron’s efforts to portray the Conservatives as the party of one nation, not the elite. “It was the moat that did it,” said an aide. “Dave decided then and there that it would have to be paid back. People may find it hard to believe that he was genuinely angry, but he could see how this would be seen by ordinary voters.”

This may well go down as a turning point in the Conservative annals. It was the moment when Cameron, a man dismissed by critics as slick but insubstantial, showed his true leadership qualities. He summoned his shadow cabinet and told each of them they would have to repay any excessive claims.

Then he addressed a meeting of the full parliamentary party where he told backbenchers that anyone who failed to make the requisite repayments would “cease to be a Conservative MP”. He concluded with these words: “I was elected by you to give a lead. I am doing just that.”

In the tea room afterwards there were mutterings about a grandees’ revolt. The rumour spread that Michael Ancram, the aristocrat who claimed £14,000 a year in expenses while owning three properties worth an estimated £8m, would lead the “refuseniks”. Later — perhaps after reading the inevitable angry e-mails from constituents — he backed down and insisted he backed Cameron 100%.

At 3.30pm the Tory leader summoned journalists to a press conference where he laid out his payback plan. The busy coffee shop in Portcullis House emptied as MPs from all parties scurried to watch the performance on television.

Cameron itemised the expenses crimes of his shadow cabinet, naming each one and saying how much they would repay and for what. He said he would pay back £680 to the fees office for a claim made for “wisteria removal”.

“People are right to be angry that some MPs have taken public money to pay for things that, frankly, few can afford. You have been let down,” he said.

Brown and Labour were left trailing. “It was majestic,” said one Labour MP of Cameron’s performance. “If only Gordon could lead like that. This was Cameron’s clause 4 moment.” He was referring to the time when a young Tony Blair scrapped Labour’s totemic commitment to state ownership and set the party on course for power.

While Cameron sacked Mackay pre-emptively before newspapers reported the truth about his expenses, Labour’s response to allegations has been more sluggish. It is understood that Labour whips knew there was a potential problem with Morley’s mortgage payments for up to a week before the Telegraph revealed the truth. Yet he was disciplined only after the details were published.

The sight of Nick Brown, Labour’s chief whip, delivering a shifty explanation in front of the television cameras contrasted badly with Cameron’s decisiveness. Cameron, too, has set up an expenses scrutiny committee, dubbed the “star chamber”, which includes Ed Llewellyn, his chief of staff, and Patrick McLaughlin, the chief whip. It will meet tomorrow to draw up a hit list of Conservative MPs. If there are any cases of apparent fraud, the party leadership is determined to discover them before the press.

Ominously for Labour, Lord Ashcroft, the billionaire Tory donor who also manages the party’s target seat campaign for the general election, has been taking a keen interest in the disclosures. When the full details of MPs’ expenses are finally published, Ashcroft plans to use auditors to comb through the files of target Labour MPs to look for any discrepancies missed by the media.

Labour whips, on the other hand, report problems with getting decisions made at the top. “Everything feels strangely dislocated,” one MP said. “We do not know who really is in charge.”

There is a sense that many of the mea culpas — from government ministers to Tory grandees and backbenchers — have been half-hearted. Malik stepped down as a minister, yet still insisted that he was “as straight as they come” and his claims were “one million per cent by the book”.

As one member of the public observed: “With maths like that, no wonder his expenses are f*****.”

Public outrage was on full display on BBC’s Question Time. The audience wanted blood. On the panel was Margaret Beckett, a former Labour foreign secretary, who claimed £72,537 over four years for work on her constituency home. She even tried to get taxpayers to meet the cost of hanging baskets, plant tubs and painting her summer house. Those claims had been rejected as having nothing to do with her parliamentary work.

After listening to her attempts at justification, a member of the audience asked: “Mrs Beckett, are you going to pay back the £72,000 that you have taken after your mealy-mouthed answer trying to explain yourself?”

Beckett replied: “No, I’m not.” As she tried to continue, the audience booed and heckled. Someone cried out: “Do you think you’re better than us?”

It was not long before some angry voters took revenge online. Don’t Panic, a young design group, filmed Hayden Prowse, its editor, travelling to the Rutland home of Alan Duncan, a millionaire Tory MP who had claimed £7,000 expenses (and been paid £4,000) for gardening.

Prowse proceeded to do some gardening for free “to save taxpayers’ money”. He planted flowers in the shape of a large “£” sign in Duncan’s lawn. He “discovered” a “money tree” in the garden festooned with £10 notes and unearthed a small treasure chest in a flower bed. “What’s in here?” asked Prowse as a colleague filmed him. “Oooh, taxpayers’ money!”

THE continuing scrutiny of the affairs of our representatives will probably produce more rage than humour among the public. Many MPs are still tempted to justify their abuse of expenses by claiming they are low paid. Yet their salary of £64,766 puts them in the top 10% of earners in the country — and more than 150 of them, including many with high expenses claims, have additional jobs outside parliament.

A few are receiving tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds extra from second jobs in the private sector, according to contracts obtained by The Sunday Times. William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, has a contract with an investment company under which he can claim £7,000 a day to attend business meetings, plus £3,500 for “travelling time”. He now says he intends to give up all his work outside parliament.

Willetts is being paid more than £3,000 a day working for a pensions company. He is also chairman of a technology company. Tony Baldry, the Conservative MP for Banbury, has 10 paid jobs outside parliament. He works as the head of a London barristers’ chambers and also as a legal “arbitrator and mediator”. In addition he is chairman of a company investing in emerging economies and executive partner in a film company. In parliament he claimed the maximum housing expenses last year of £23,083.

Among the biggest earners on the Labour benches are the former ministers Patricia Hewitt, Adam Ingram, Alan Milburn and Charles Clarke.

Hewitt is earning at least £150,000 a year from work outside parliament, while at the same time receiving her MP’s salary and £147,000 in total expenses. Ingram has outside interests that pay him at least £145,000 on top of his MP’s salary. He not only claims the maximum in second home allowance from the House of Commons, but also employs his wife and his cousin’s son on parliamentary expenses. In 2007-8 he claimed £53,000 in staffing allowances.

Milburn, a former leading cabinet minister under Blair, has outside earnings that run to at least £80,000 on top of his parliamentary salary and the £162,589 he claimed in 2007-8 in parliamentary expenses.

Clarke, who claimed £162,220 in expenses in 2007-8 as MP for Norwich South, earns between £35,000 and £40,000 as a consultant to a law firm called Beachcroft and further undisclosed sums as an adviser to KPMG, the accountants, and Charles Street Securities, a firm of investment bankers. He has not spoken in a parliamentary debate since April last year.

However, the prime minister believes MPs are paid to concentrate on serving their constituents. He has asked the committee on standards in public life to look into the issue “to avoid conflicts of interest and to reflect the fact that MPs receive a parliamentary salary for a full-time job”.

TOMORROW the action will move to the Commons chamber where Carswell, MP for Harwich and Clacton, will lead the charge to unseat the Speaker. He is expected to have at least a dozen names signed up to his motion of no confidence.

No Speaker in modern times has faced such a challenge to his authority (although during the 15th and 16th centuries six of Martin’s predecessors were beheaded and one was murdered).

It is understood that the Speaker has prepared a three-page defence of his record pointing out that, contrary to the critics’ claims, he had in fact been a champion of reform. Such words will fall on deaf ears among the hundreds of MPs who privately now want him to go. If Martin digs his heels in, it is likely that more senior figures will weigh in behind Carswell.

Vernon Bogdanor, professor of government at Oxford University, believes Martin will have to go, especially after attacking some individual MPs over their views on expenses.

“The Speaker’s authority rests on the fact that he represents the whole House of Commons, all MPs whatever their views,” Bogdanor said. “It is unprecedented in my opinion that he rebukes individual MPs because he doesn’t share their views. He’s not a political leader; he’s there to give all points of view a hearing. I think once a Speaker has been criticised, he has been undermined. In my view he’s crippled.”

Downing Street has again been divided over how to handle the crisis. But yesterday it appeared that the prime minister was beginning to acknowledge that Martin’s departure is inevitable if the Tories and Liberal Democrats withdraw their support.

Other MPs may be more concerned about their own fate as moves gather pace for police inquiries into the abuse of expenses. A panel of senior prosecutors and Scotland Yard officers will meet next week to decide what, if any, action to take.

If the authorities fail to act on prima facie cases of fraud, moves are afoot to bring private prosecutions. Sir Paul Judge, a multi-millionaire businessman who is attempting to forge a new type of non-party politics, has said he is willing to fund legal action.

While public opinion may want investigations for fraud, the system may be more closely scrutinised over its tax treatment. Mike Truman, editor of Taxation magazine, said that in addition to avoiding tax on second home expenses, MPs also did not appear to be paying tax on trips from homes outside their constituencies to Westminster.

Bob Spink, a former Tory MP who now represents UKIP, also alleged that many MPs have used expenses to help to bankroll their local parties by overpaying for office space and staff costs. Party accounts show that in some constituencies — Conservative and Labour — the MP’s expenses can be the biggest single source of funds.

MPs insist they pay a fair price for rent and offices services. Spink said: “It’s a scam and should be investigated.”

MOST MPs feel their worst retribution will come at the ballot box. Voters are disgusted and many seem to want a fresh start to clean up the mess. A ComRes survey on Friday found that 64% of people thought politicians shamed by the expenses scandal should resign and 65% thought there should be an election as soon as possible.

Brown is unlikely to agree, since he faces annihilation at the polls in the present mood. A YouGov poll on Friday showed that support for Labour has fallen to 22%, just one percentage point ahead of the Lib Dems. The Tories have a commanding lead with 41%.

Fringe parties such as UKIP and, more alarmingly, the BNP, are poised to take advantage of the general outrage at the main parties.

A number of MPs could face deselection by their local party. In Luton, Mahmood Hussain, the Labour constituency chairman, said the possibility of deselecting Margaret Moran had been discussed. Moran had claimed more than £20,000 treating dry rot at her husband’s home in Southampton, more than 100 miles away from her constituency. She has since given the money back, although she has not apologised.

James Gray, the Tory MP for Wiltshire North who is under fire for claiming Remembrance Day wreaths on expenses, will be lucky to survive the wrath of his grass roots members. He narrowly survived a previous deselection battle over his caddish treatment of Sarah, his popular ex-wife. Mackay, MP for Bracknell, Berkshire, may also be forced to jump.

Some radical members of Labour’s ruling national executive committee have put forward a motion requiring all sitting Labour MPs to undergo reselection votes.

Do not rule out a return to the Commons for Martin Bell, the former BBC journalist who in 1997 beat Neil Hamilton, the “cash for questions” Tory, in Tatton. Bell, who has recently returned from a charity trip to Somalia, said: “I came back to London to discover that the real pirates are in Britain and that the House of Commons is their mother ship.”

Across the country voters are reassessing their MPs, asking simple questions: are they honest, are they fair? Heather Brooke, the freedom of information campaigner who began the process of uncovering MPs’ expenses, believes her work has boosted Britain’s political system, not undermined it. “I think it’s fantastic,” she said. “I think people are really engaged in politics now. For the first time in hundreds of years, people can see that it’s not one law for MPs and another law for everyone else.”

That change of mood was evident in Bury North where Chaytor, who claimed money for his non-existent mortgage, faces an uphill task to retain constituents’ confidence and his majority of 2,926. David Nuttall, his Conservative rival for the seat, made his point plainly yesterday on his blog: “I am always conscious that it is not government money, it is the public’s money, many of whom really struggle to make ends meet and I can well understand the anger that people feel when they read the revelations that have come to light in the past few days.

“I only hope that the damage that has been done to the standing and the trust of politicians can be repaired.”

It is a task that could take years, maybe even decades.