Coming home to roost; REDMOND.

IMPLEMENTED. The way things are done. The way things are said. Execution is often more important than the event.

The Manchester Knight may well be pondering on this on coming back from Rome, pockets picked, although in his post-match interview he did acknowledge the principle by admitting defeat to a better side on the night. So, despite being the British flag carriers; despite reminding London that the heartland of football is still the North West and why the National Football Museum is in Preston, we can pause and allow ourselves a moment of contemplative glee and look forward to another round of "Where's Your European Cup?" when they visit Anfield next season.

Scouseland has always been Blandchester's nemesis. Even the Blues, under their Manager of the Year, another son of Preston, foxed Fergie and head back to Wembley to take on yet another bunch of Champions' League losers. No doubt the Met's Riot Police will be out in force again as they must be missing the ovies since the G20 gig.

Actually, they don't seem to be getting out at all lately, or perhaps the media has decided that MPs' lack of judgment is a bigger threat to democracy than a few rogue cops slapping people. They are probably right, for it is not that MPs shouldn't get expenses and a decent salary, it's more about the way the whole system seems to have been implemented.

Wandering around any housing estate, you will soon find examples of manicured lawns, water features and the occasional garden gnome, so I doubt anyone really begrudges any MP for wanting a nice duck house or even having their wisteria trimmed. It's the fact that they didn't seem to "get" the fact that most people would consider banging it on the exees, well, indulgent.

Arrogant, even? Detached? It is also not even about individuals, or the fact that they have reverted to jobsworth Britain's default mode: "It says here, guvnor". As the Manchester Knight found last night, sometimes simply playing the game isn't enough. No, the disrespect and misery has come about due to the exposure of how a typically British fudge was concocted and implemented, to dodge, rather than face up to the real issue.

That was, and still is, about MPs' pay and, like all fudges and shams, eventually they fall away, and, plucking at a clich, chickens come home to roost and everyone gets pecked. Ask any banker, well, the ones still on their perches without the golden eggs (OK - enough).

The forthcoming European Elections are probably too soon for real reflective voting, but, come the elections next year, the public will have reflected properly not on what their politicians promised to do, nor what they say they have actually done, but more on how things have actually been implemented..I doubt anyone begrudges any MP for wanting a nice duck house