IF you are a taxpayer, you should take another look in your wallet or purse this week and check if you’ve been mugged again. It hasn’t take long for Speaker John Bercow to embroil himself in controversy after taking over in the summer from the discredited and quite useless Michael (Now Lord) Martin. I am sure most taxpayers will be less than ecstatic to learn that Mr Bercow has spent some £45,000 of public money - yours and mine - redecorating his grace and favour Westminster apartment.

Part of this he says is necessary because he has a young family, though apparently his wife likes scatter cushions and these are included in the bill. The news broke over the weekend but it seems the Speaker ordered the makeover within days of his election in June. Those of us with short memories recall how Tory MP Mr Bercow pledged to restore trust in politics after the expenses scandal and his predecessor’s slow and inept response to it.

He claimed it was “high time” that Parliament was run by professionals on a transparent basis “ensuring we are accountable to the people who put us here.”

Before he became Speaker, Mr Bercow was not an especially popular MP on his own side of the House to say the least.

No doubt he’ll be using his new media adviser (salary £100,000 per year) to do some urgent damage limitation with the public.