A number of MPs who were implicated in the parliamentary expenses scandal have appeared on Radio 4, guns blazing. The presenter Becky Milligan interviewed among others Andrew George, Denis McShane, Nadine Dorries and Ann Cryer who revealed to her the extent to which the expenses row had affected their lives. Most of the higher profile cases that included front bench home flippers and tax cheats were not however featured.

"It was terrible. I was treated like a common criminal," said one of the high-spending MPs. "I was booed and heckled just because I didn't pay any tax. They said that I was a crook. They said that I should be behind bars, just like people who steal money. But that would be mad. How could I help run the country and do all those good deeds for my constituents if I was behind bars? It would make me a worse, not a better person."

Another said, "They accused me of claiming for a mortgage that I'd forgotten I had. Just imagine the effect that that had on my family? It made them think that I was losing my marbles, that I had contracted Alzheimers or something. My little daughter crawled up to me in floods of tears and said to me, "Daddy? Are you going bonkers and will the men in white coats take you away?" I replied to her, "Probably darling, if this expenses scandal doesn't blow over."

A third said, "Just imagine what my family thought when people laughed at our house? We'd always thought that it looked rather like  Windsor Castle. But then some joker on the TV japed that it was more like Sunninghill Park. Imagine how the family reacted to being compared to the home counties nouveaux riches? We'll never live this down. We had spent so much money trying to look like 'old money'"

Finally one MP said, "They mocked my 'Goose Palace' for which I had paid an arm and a leg and had had especially shipped over from Schleswig-Holstein. It was 17th Century Baroque and based on a design by Joseph Furttenbach the Elder. After this scandal, the Geese stopped coming. I mean, its not surprising really is it? With all those reporters taking pictures of it, what goose would want to be seen dead in it? Now the poor geesey all have to go and squeeze into the ghastly municipal plastic monstrosity in the local park. Are you happy, Daily Telegraph for making these geese suffer so?"