In February this year, Parliament's Committee on Standards in Public Life decided against launching an inquiry into MPs' allowances.

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But my amusement comes from the way on which, as always happens, when we open a discussion, have an inquiry into, about how such and such an area of life should be regulated we get the same groups leaping in with the same old arguments.

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And now the majority members of this committee have called that same prosecutor forward to testify in an unprecedented desperation effort to breathe new life into a dying inquiry.

CNN: Transcript: Judiciary Committee impeachment hearing