A customer relations officer from Ellesmere Port has been electronically tagged for two months, given a curfew and ordered to pay £2,440.66 in costs for leaving a 15-week-old kitten alone for two days.

What does this tell us about justice in Britain today? Quite a lot, especially when you consider that the punishment Tanya Sharples was given by Ellesmere Port and Neston magistrates court last week, for the 48-hour abandonment of Charlie the kitten, is far greater than any penalties likely to be received by any bankers or MPs for the damage they have done to Britain's financial and political institutions.

Across Britain, people are being punished with historic vindictiveness by magistrates' courts and the police. They are being hounded because they fail to obey footling laws on wheelie bins, for illegal parking while picking up children from school, for waving foreign flags, dog fouling and littering. Dover's police chief, Chris Hogben, has announced that anyone caught dropping even a single chocolate wrapper will be locked up for 24 hours. Leaving aside the fact that Hogben seems to have forgotten the principle that punishment follows conviction, it is worth noting that as a society we place greater emphasis on the prosecution of these tiny acts of antisocial behaviour than we do on bringing to justice the crooks and conmen in this era of Labour corruption.

Astonishingly, the police have already announced that no MP is likely to be charged, despite evidence, not just of widespread venality, but of activities which come very close to theft. As for the bankers, they're already back in bonus land. Andy Hornby, the former head of HBOS who caused such a calamity at the bank, yesterday became the chief executive of Boots with a salary and bonus likely to be over £1m per year. I am not saying that Hornby has done anything illegal, just that his case conforms to the pattern in which the rich, privileged and powerful are able to shrug of these catastrophes and continue on their way with almost no shame and little impact on their careers.

Perhaps you have noticed during the recent election coverage the way in which MPs have been distancing themselves from the expenses scandal and speaking as though it was one of those extreme weather events that occasionally affect humanity. The issue is portrayed as a result of the combination of poor personal book-keeping, the ambiguities of the fees office and the relatively low salary of MPs, but never a failure of personal morality of course.

A free society is based on three essential elements: democracy, liberty and justice. Over the last few years I have often questioned whether we have a proper democracy and have showed – I hope – that the things we like to call our democratic institutions do not guarantee our liberty.

What has become clear in the present scandal is that our system of justice favours a powerful few over the many, and is meting out disproportionately harsh punishments to ordinary offenders, while letting off those who have done so much to cause chaos in our society.

It is an absolute disgrace that we have a chancellor who has flipped his home to avoid the very tax that he is responsible for setting and a mark of the decline of public standards of accountability that he is still in his job. Gordon Brown's failure to publish the report into the affairs of Shahid Malik , who claimed over £60,000 on properties, beggars belief given his recent undertakings to clean up politics. Malik works in the Justice Department: the public needs to be assured his behaviour is of the highest integrity, which I am afraid is not at all clear at the moment.

If a woman is made to suffer – excessively in my view – for abandoning her damned cat, it must follow that we cannot let off these MPs. Many should resign their seats or be forcibly removed by parliament. Police investigations should be relentless. All reports by the prime minister's adviser on ministerial conduct, Sir Phillip Mawer, should be published. At a time of incessant criminal justice legislation, the creation of 3,500 criminal offences, the unending rise in the prison population, justice must be seen to be done. These politicians should be charged, whatever the crown prosecution service's views on the likelihood of conviction. Let juries decide on the issue of guilt. Let these men and women stand in the dock and answer for themselves.