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“WHAT potent blood hath modest May” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. In political terms it is often the most politically potent month, containing the usual blood-curdling, blood-letting, blood-boiling prospect of an election. Yet for those of us involved in political circles – especially those who are elected and accountable – it has been more potent than ever this year.

Has May 2009 really been good for Parliamentary democracy? It could – and has – been argued that democracy has benefitted from making some MPs properly accountable for the money they have spent. But more broadly, all MPs seem to have been condemned in the eyes of the population at large, and the trust invested in politicians by their electorate has been broken. But it has to be asked whether this is healthy in the long term. When Wales On Sunday can publish a poll showing that even Welsh MPs whose claims have not been disclosed stand to lose their seats in the backlash against troughing, then we live in dangerous times. After all, there are plenty of them of which we know next to nothing at present, at least in terms of the expenses they have claimed.

The manner of the publication of these claims can bring a smile. The teasers like “Fat Northern MP ate four pork pies for lunch” or “Guess which moustachioed male MP bought a shed?” were strangely intriguing and engaging. For the first week, it was possible to play a political version of “Guess Who?”, mentally seeking to identify the culprits of minor misdemeanours. It was always, of course, easy to work out who the major culprits were. The big photos of them and the Google Earth images of the duck house helped. Even some of the ones previously never heard of have become household names.

A decade ago, there was an episode of Saturday Night Armistice in which Armando Ianucci poked fun at the relative anonymity of the then Conservative front bench in the Commons. The audience was offered a van full of cash if anyone could correctly name Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Andrew Mackay from his photograph. Nobody could. Bet Ianucci wouldn’t stake a lorry load of money on that these days.

However, it’s no longer easy to smile when reading the paper, duck houses excepted. Despite the upsides in unmasking some heinous behaviour, there has been something scurrilous and destabilising in the way this has been managed. Those who have made small claims for food or for house repairs within both the spirit and word of the rules have been lumped together with those treating dry rot in homes 100 miles from their constituency, dredging moats, getting security measures on the taxpayer, evading Capital Gains Tax, and claiming money for a mortgage they have already paid off. Every day has brought a fresh horror alongside disclosures that are pretty trivial, and the public have been encouraged through the reporting to examine them all as symbols of decadence, decay and moral debauchery.

Every day our MPs have sunk further into public contempt and ridicule. They have reached the point where it was possible to believe the Wales on Sunday’s poll, predicting electoral wipeout for 80% of Welsh MPs if we went to the polls immediately, more closely resembled swine flu than a political crisis.

The audience on Question Time last Thursday were certainly not misrepresentative, and they called for an immediate election. But in spite of the will of the people, those urging more caution make more sense. The Cromwellian overture to end the Parliament is not an argument that yet persuades, particularly as those calls are becoming politicised. There is understandable anger out there, but it does not necessarily follow that an immediate election will be good for the country in the longer term.

Rather, a series of other actions needs to go ahead. The first of these has already happened, with the resignation of the Speaker. He made three big mistakes in 10 days. His bravado when first confronted in the Commons by the leak was farcical, his behaviour in Parliament the day before he resigned pitiful, but his worst mistake was calling in the police when the story first broke. Not to probe allegations of fraud, but to find the source behind the leak. At all three points he could have turned this round to an extent if he only half understood public opinion. Instead he only made matters worse for the Commons every time he acted or spoke. To an extent, he has been made a scapegoat. But he needed to answer for his own actions.

Individual MPs need to answer for their own actions, too. Many more must see the damage they’ve done to their parties and to politics, and announce they are standing down. Douglas Hogg MP, Sir Peter Viggers MP and Anthony Steen MP were among the first to announce their departures, and so they should have. But they are all veteran politicians at the end of their careers. Others with their careers ahead of them who have badly sinned need to make the same choice. If they don’t sacrifice themselves, then their political parties should sacrifice them. If the parties don’t, the electorate will do it for them.

The most important thing that needs to be done, however, is to restore the accountability and transparency of Parliament. The full details of all the expenses need to be published immediately. It is important that the Commons takes the initiative back from the Daily Telegraph. Only then will the daily dirty dozen pages stop. Only then can a full picture be presented to party leaders so they can be certain who has transgressed and take appropriate action. Only then can the political parties have confidence in candidates which they could recommend to the electorate. Only then will this nightmare end. Only then could we have a properly-informed General Election.

And all this while there’s another election going on. The European Parliament elections are usually hijacked by some campaign or another than does not affect the European Parliament, but this time the campaign focus is on a totally different plane. Friends in all parties have been complaining that’s its very difficult to get messages across when the electorate view your collective profession with contempt. Turnout on June 4 will be down on last time’s high watermark of 42%. In other electoral regions (but not thankfully Wales) the extreme right will probably profit enough to return their first MEPs – probably one of the big legacies of this current period, and one most people would never have expected or wanted to see.

Without a doubt this whole episode – and it is far from over – has been the biggest challenge to the stability of our democracy since the Second World War. Next week we may witness some of the most unpleasant consequences of the way this has all been managed.

The month of May has indeed been potent and bloody this year.