OPINION - Mark Menzies and the Tory scandals: sensational fun, but pity us poor voters

There is no getting away from Karl Marx’s gag about history beginning as tragedy and ending as farce. When the only thing we can think about when it comes to the Government is a mesmerising sex scandal, we really are in John Major 1997 territory.

, featuring financial impropriety as well as, um, bad judgment. Last December, Mark Menzies, an MP no one has ever heard of, allegedly phoned an elderly local Tory party volunteer at 3.15am to tell her that he needed £5,000 “as a matter of life