HOW comforting that Hyndburn Council leader Peter Britcliffe thinks it is to councillors' credit that they have "retained their dignity" while the matter of a bunch of them pocketing thousands of pounds in expenses that they were not entitled to was investigated.

And how comforting it must be for these dignified claimants that, at the end of the probe, they are being allowed to keep £17,400 of public money after claiming allowances for attending meetings for which expenses were not legally payable.

The mistakes -- which go back to 1996 and clocked up £20,000 in over-payments in the last 18 months alone -- may now have been acknowledged, but can they really have been rectified if taxpayers' money is not being reclaimed? I don't think so. There is nothing dignified in them being allowed by the government to keep it.

Coun Britcliffe speaks of the matter being dealt with honestly and openly, but those principles would be adhered to much better if councillors had the integrity to pay the money back -- no matter what absolution the government has given them. Will they now do that? Don't fret about being hit by a flying pig while waiting for the answer.

But isn't this the whole problem with local government -- that taxpayers' money is apparently used and spent by our public representatives with so little regard for the people out of whose pockets it comes? Witness nigh on £1 million of debt being written off without as much as a word by councillors at Blackburn and the case of the town's ex-mayor being copped for making private calls on his council-issued mobile phone.

Is it any wonder that older citizens among us yearn for the days when councillors did their job without perks -- because there weren't any?