The Times News blog asks: “Do you remember what you were doing when you heard that Nelson Mandela had been freed?”

Nelson Mandela want free on 11 February 1990. At that point, I was four (just four days away frm being five). So no, I don’t remember what I was doing, though I can imagine it involved brightly coloured blocks, poster paints, and large-print books with lots of pictures.

A hung parliament is, if we take the recent poll results as gospel, on the cards. The Conservatives need a national poll lead of 11 points in order to guarantee a majority, but the current polls are suggesting a lead of seven to nine points. Hence the plethora of “what will happen in the event of a hung parliament?” questions being posed. Even the Queen is being primed on what could happen.

But a hung parliament is still a relatively unlikely event. The MPs expenses won’t make have of an impact on the re-election prospects of most MPs, but could easily pick off a few of the offenders in the more marginal seats.

Also, the top-line poll results we see are national polls, and inevitably include an increase in safe seats. It is widely believed that Labour’s recovery is very much down to a re-engagement of its core support in its heartlands, and as such building in the areas it needs it least.

Then we have the reality of UK elections: only the marginal seats really matter. And in these marginal seats, the swing to the Tories is greater than across the country – because they knw that the choice is simple – who do they want to be Prime Minister, Gordon Brown or David Cameron? Five more years of Brown or a fresh new government bringing about the change we need; that’s what is being voted on.

A hung parliament is always a possibility. But not as likely as is being touted.

This is how David Cameron wants to do it:

I’ll be writing some commentary on this tomorrow.

As if it isn’t bad enough that they defraud the taxpayer through their expense claims to such an extent that the CPS has felt necessary to prosecute them – the first time so many parliamentarians have been brought before the courts since the build up to the Civil War – the three Labour MPs are trying to claim immunity.

Elliot Morley, David Chaytor and Jim Devine… have employed leading constitutional lawyers to argue that their conduct cannot be tried in a criminal court and that only Parliament can discipline them.

It is feared that the prosecution case against them could be delayed by months of legal wrangling over whether the MPs are right to assert that their actions are covered by parliamentary privilege…

One of the main components of parliamentary privilege is “exclusive cognisance” which states that Parliament must have “sole control” over its own affairs. This also extends to Parliament having the power to “discipline its own members for misconduct”.

It is understood that the MPs believe their expense claims are also covered by privilege. This is because the expenses scheme was administered by Parliament through its fees office and all claims related to their work as MPs. (The Telegraph)

Parliamentary privilege?! These three have claimed £60,000 between them (David Chaytor: £20,000 for IT services and rent; Elliott Morley: £30,000 interest on a paid-off mortgage; Jim Devine: £9,000 for cleaning and stationery). Fraudulently claiming expnses is illegal, and they should be prosecuted and dealt with according to the law.

They must not be allowed to trot out the “parliamantary privilege” defence to save them from this. That is there to protect MPs for being prosecuted for what they say in the Chamber and to allow them to do their job without fear of being sued. But these expense claims were by their very nature – the fact that they have been deemed unacceptable by Legg and serious enough for the CPS to wish to prosecute over – had nothing to do with carrying out their job as an MP but everything to do with lining their pockets at our expense.

This privilege should not be available to parliamentarians who are not worthy of the title “Right Honourable”. And these three are right at the top of that list.

It sounds rather like a middle-class sex position, doesn’t it? But if you ignore that (and get that image out of your head – that took me a while…) and read this Political Betting post:

So here we are – what many MPs are hoping will be the low point for them in the whole expenses saga – the publication today of the Legg Report…

The general theory, backed up by election after election, is that incumbent MPs get an electoral bonus. Could this affair see that produce the opposite. Will 2010 be marked by the “reverse incumbency effect”?

What this is implying is that the MPs expenses saga could mean that all sitting MPs – regardless of party or the extent to which they are personally caught up in it – will see their electorate turn against them simply because they are an existing MP. I can see a lot of play in this in constituencies where MPs have been made to repay money by Legg (especially substantial amounts of money), but not really very much when the local MP has been cleared.

I can only really see the reverse incumbency effect making a significant difference in areas where the individual MP has been pulled up by Legg over their expenses. However, candidates may well be able to make a small amount of traction out of it anyway through making general points about MP expensres and declaring they will openly declare everything that they have claimed.

But I don’t think that people are angry beyond reason or have significantly more trust in wannabe-MPs than in existing MPs. Some MPs who have been in the news may see their vote diminish through expenses, but I don’t think this has even neutralised the usual incumbency effect in most cases, let alone turned it on its head.