Safe seat? Safe to fleece the taxpayer.

“Those in safe seats were three times as likely to be identified as having abused their expenses.” – Nick Clegg

So said Nick Clegg, writing in The Daily Telegraph. He was using research from Lib Dem blogger Mark Thompson, who had compiled a spreadsheet comparing the size of MPs majorities with how they figured in the Telegraph’s coverage of MP’s expenses.

Channel 4’s FactCheck went through his numbers and got the same result, showing that those with secure parliamentary seats featured in the reveleations two to three times as often as those those future in the House of Commons was less certain.

The close correlation doesn’t, on its own, prove that nervousness about your political survival makes you less likely to manipulate the system to your own ends. But if there’s an element of truth to it, it certainly undermines the argument for taxpayer funding of politicial parties. Go down that route and who knows how bad things will become.