He's the re-form candidate, daddy,” Junior O’Daniel says of his father’s challenger for the governorship of Mississippi in the film “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”. “A lot of people like that re-form. Maybe we should get us some.” Britain’s political parties all seem to be thinking much the same thing.

The expenses scandal has ignited a broader, competitive debate about parliamentary and constitutional reform. As is always the case with constitutional debates, this one combines the noblest motives, or their avowal, with self-interest: a need to seem attuned to public contempt for politics, and an opportunistic bid to push pet ambitions while the mood seems propitious.

Consider the big speech given by David Cameron, the leader of the Conservatives, on May 26th. Mr Cameron argued for a cut in the number of MPs-an economy which, because of the pro-Labour way parliamentary constituencies are now organised, would benefit the Tories. He roped in assorted policies that the Tories have long been flogging under their clunky slogan of “the post-bureaucratic age”. So, for example, holding a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, abolishing quangos, and the Tories’ plans for local government and school reform all featured beneath the rubric of redistributing power. That is not to deny the virtue of some of Mr Cameron’s ideas, such as more directly elected mayors and open primaries for picking parliamentary candidates.

Meanwhile Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, called for a “total reinvention of British politics”, which he optimistically claims can be achieved in 100 days. He wants voters to have a California-style right of recall over MPs; to replace the House of Lords with an elected senate; to tighten the rules on party funding; and, as ever, to replace the first-past-the post method used in Westminster elections with a more proportional system (which would principally benefit the Lib Dems).

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