I TRY not to be resentful about those City bankers (rhyming slang) who have just collected their million-pound bonuses, but it can be difficult. At least I need not envy those who've booked a "trip of a lifetime" to Australia to watch what remains of The Ashes.

One group of people who aren't going to worry too much about their Antipodean odyssey turning sour are the 14 MPs (and their wives in the case of the rare heterosexual ones) who are flying out on a subsidised tour tomorrow, which includes bungee-jumping in New Zealand, shopping in Hong Kong, and the odd bit of cricket in Melbourne and Sydney.

To you, Squire, a snip at £3,000. Actual cost, once all the freebies and hospitality have been removed, nearer six grand.

Nice work if you can get it.

Of course, £3,000 would be beyond the pockets of most ordinary people, but not if you're on £60k (demanding an increase to £100k) and "expenses" of a further £130,000 on average.

You know, there used to be an afternoon's amusement in the House of Commons on the day that our elected members had to argue their case, in public, for an inflation-busting pay rise. I seem to remember people such as Enoch Powell and Tony Benn causing huge embarrassment to their colleagues by objecting to any increase that would take the dishonourable members beyond the minimum wage.

These days it's all different. Because they didn't like having to argue their case in the full glare ofthe public eye, the issue of MPs' pay was passed to a sub-committee of the civil service. Now they can bleat away about deserving the same money as GPs, without having to stand up on their hind legs while exposing themselves to the ridicule of their constituents.

It's snouts in the trough as usual.

Nothing ever changes, except that they now get to fill their pockets without blushing when they're next trying to explain to Mrs Trellis from North Wales why Gordon Brown's run off with her pension.

NOW HERE'S a rare thing for this column - a true story. I was invited to the House of Lords for lunch last week as part of a charitable concern in which I'm involved.

I had to leave home in the dark, and only realised once I'd arrived at the station that I was wearing a blue pin-striped suit jacket and grey pin-striped suit trousers.

Under normal circumstances, I'd have killed myself rather than undergo the embarrassment of such a fashion faux pas. But instinct told me that I might get away with it.

Dear Reader, I need not have worried. I spent the best part of three hours in the House of Lords without anyone giving me a second glance. To be fair, I looked more normal than most of the Upper House. There were people in carpet slippers, smoking jackets and the kind of tweed suits that have not only seen service on the grouse moor, but have been used to carry back the dead birds as well.

But what did impress me was the honesty with which these people went about their jobs. They might be hereditary peers or they might be NuLabour placemen, but there was a genuine feeling that their role was a very real check and balance on the simplistic, knee-jerking, law-making process of Mr Blah's glib and gutless Government.

WOOH! STEP away from the spontaneously combusting children! There has been a Christingle service held at Chelmsford Cathedral since 1747.

In all that time, there is no record of a small child catching fire due to the "candle stuck in an orange" combo that is customary at these events.

Now a man called Richard Spilsbury, one of the organisers, has decreed that this year the kids must carry fluorescent glowsticks rather than burning candles. "Some parents have raised concerns about their children's hair catching fire, " he says.

Liar, liar, pants on fire. Show me a single parent who has "raised concerns". It's the Health and Safety Nazis in action again. And let's face it, if we do lose the odd five-year-old in a tangerine inferno, isn't it worth it just to maintain these old traditions?

So there you go. Never mind your child being mown down by a 4x4 outside their school. Never mind your child being murdered by the East Stranglia. Let's just worry about them being consumed by Christingle flames.

It's enough to make a cat laugh.