Sorry, Esther Rantzen, the public and Parliament don't need you

Startling news. Esther Rantzen is thinking of standing as an independent candidate against Margaret Moran, the Labour MP for Luton South.

Moran flipped her second home and then claimed £22,500 for a dry rot bill at a seaside house 100 miles away from her constituency. She's one of the villains of the recent revelations over MP's expenses.

Inspired, no doubt, by that other 60-something campaigner, Joanna Lumley, and the success she had in turning the public against the politicians with her campaign for Gurkha rights, Esther Rantzen has decided to save us from ourselves.

Never mind the fact that, with Labour doing so badly, Margaret Moran, even if she isn't deselected by her constituency, doesn't have a chance of keeping her 5,650 majority.

For every Martin Bell we get a Robert Kilroy-Silk

"If the voters think it's worthwhile and they want me, here I am", breathes the former That's Life host and Childline champion. How will she know? Hire a focus group? Maybe she can ask Martin Bell. Because she tells us that she has been wondering: "Surely Mr Bell could now offer a new generation of hopefuls a few tips on how it's done?"

What is it with people like Esther Rantzen and Martin Bell that makes them think they are moral exemplars worthy of the public's trust? Does a lifetime spent living off licence payers' money somehow make them think they've got a superior moral status to people who spend their lifetimes living off the taxpayer? What next? The Chuckle Brothers pledging to stand against Yvette Cooper and Ed Balls? Jonathan Ross taking on Hazel Blears?

It never works. For every Martin Bell - who only won Tatton from Neil Hamilton in the 1997 general election because the Lib Dems and Labour candidate stood aside - we get a Robert Kilroy-Silk, who grandstands about cleaning up the EU, then falls out with his own party UKIP weeks after joining. He isn't even standing at next month's EU elections.

A sad truth: the only people who can clean up politics are politicians

What exactly did Martin Bell achieve, anyway? He may make pretty speeches, and get invited to moralise on Newsnight once in a while, but he didn't change a single law. He didn't even win a seat the second time he did his Wat Tyler act, losing to Eric Pickles in another constituency, Brentwood and Ongar - after accusations that a Pentecostal church had infiltrated the local Conservative Association - in 2001. These showbiz types are one-trick ponies.

The sad, brutal, even possibly tragic fact is that the only people who can clean up politics are politicians themselves. We might fill the House of Commons with 650 versions of Esther Rantzen, but there is no more reason to think they'd agree on what constitutes reasonable expenses than they would on anything else.

The professionals, on the other hand, still have an incentive to get it right. They have to face an election every five years. That concentrates the mind of a professional more effectively than it would a disillusioned celeb who doesn't mind being kicked out after one term.

A TV presenter didn't oust Michael Portillo: the public did that. And unless Margaret Moran gets her houses in order, the public will do the same to her.