In most jobs, refusing to undertake a core function for which you were employed - even as conscientious objection - would dissolve the contract. The honourable path is resignation.

But not the pseudo-accountable world of representative politics, where internal loyalties trump responsibility to electors, and where the rules can be sidestepped at one's convenience.

Take the MPs pleading ignorance of their own family heritage when they signed their nomination forms. Try that with your next tax return.

Yet politicians believe there's one set of rules for the public, and another for them.