Quote of the week

Facing a national uproar over lawmakers claiming lavish expenses, Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, promised Sunday to pursue constitutional reforms — including a proposal to remove legislators' power to decide their own pay. He said the government was considering reforms that would mean lawmakers no longer set the rules about their salaries and expenses.
“There will be no more of the gentleman's club,” Mr. Brown said on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show. “Self-regulation, closed society — that was a 19th-century idea.”
He said he wanted to overhaul the House of Lords, the unelected upper chamber, and set up external supervision of Parliament, adding that he wanted an independent panel to scrutinize all lawmakers' expense claims for the past four years.