Our obsession with children's innocence is putting them in greater danger.

As far as annoying, hackneyed phrases go, 'political correctness gone mad' takes the number one slot. But every so often you come across a verifiable fact which prompts you to blurt it out, unwillingly, in the same way you yell when you stub your toe.

Health and safety regulations affecting children's playtime usually do the job. Ashburton Junior School, for instance, managed to provoke a barrel-load of Daily Mail bile when it ordered children not to play in the playground 15 minutes before class in case they get hurt last year.

Today, local government leaders have called on parents not to wrap their children up in cotton wool, in a carefully planned press campaign designed to rid the public of the idea that local councils are responsible for the layers of health and safety regulations which affect children.

It's insane and hugely depressing that we even have to talk about this. It goes without saying that

It's like talking in the pub with a friend who's just had their heart broken. 'Plenty more fish in the sea', you tell them. You'll get over her eventually. You try to make them see the sunshine behind the clouds.

Slowly but surely, the earthquake that is MPs' expenses is turning into something else, something brighter and more hopeful. Slowly, people in power are daring to utter strange and important words. Words like electoral reform. Words like fixed-term parliaments.

This is all good news. We urgently need to see the bright side of this malaise. We have been provided with an ideal opportunity to re-evaluate our political system, and carry out what needs to be done. We're coming out of the depression, and getting our first peek at what good might come of this mess.

David Cameron's package of suggestions in his speech to the Open University today was an excellent start. His calls for fixed-term parliaments - or at least to "seriously" think about it - open votes on committee-stage

The expenses crisis is entering a critical stage.

MPs are on the retreat from Westminster today, returning to face their constituents over the Whitsun recess.

How they are received over the course of the next week will help determine the extent of the reform which, it is now universally accepted, is inevitably coming to parliament.

The battleground will not just be confined to MPs' surgeries, however. The media's appetite for further evidence of systematic abuse of the expenses system will also provide a key test.

We've done the frontbenches of the three main parties. We've exhausted the big and powerful in parliament. Now the spotlight is on the ordinary backbenchers. How much more of the Telegraph's revelations can we take?

One thing is certain. The longer this goes on, the more damage it will have to the existing system.

And the louder will be the calls for change - sweeping change potentially going far beyond just the system of MPs' expenses.

Conversations I've had in Westminster

MPs aren't the only ones scuttling furtively around the corridors of parliament. The peers of the realm are looking pretty shifty too.

That's because yesterday they decided to suspend two of their number found guilty, in the privileges committee's eyes at least, of offering to accept cash in return for tabling amendments.

Lord Taylor of Blackburn and Lord Truscott have seriously embarrassed parliament's upper House. Peers I've spoken to are universally mortified and horrified by the awful prospect of bringing the Lords "into disrepute".

But the way in which they go about their business is just so much more grown-up than the Commons. There, it's all about careers, power, wheeling and dealing.

Here things are taken much more seriously. Ancient chivalrous notions of decency and a strong sense of the Lords' history can be found bubbling to the surface. Thank goodness, for the Lords can be much funnier than the other place "down the corridor" as a result.

The problem is that, while peers

Yesterday saw the historic ousting of the Speaker of the House of Commons for the first time in 300 years.

We have to go as far back as 1695 for a precedent. Sir John Trevor had been Speaker for ten years before he was removed from office for accepting 1,000 guineas from the City of London to push through a bill.

So it's safe to say Michael Martin didn't commit quite as heinous a crime as Sir John. But there still stands the charge levelled at him by Douglas Carswell - who not only has his 15 minutes of fame but also his place in history as the man who helped to bring down the Speaker - of lacking moral leadership.

And this is a problem for the House among many that still needs to be sorted out before this constitutional crisis is resolved.

Obviously the first job is to bring in the new interim rules on MPs' expenses announced yesterday evening by Mr Martin. But the second job, and one which many MPs appear to already be busying themselves with if for no other reason than to have

After a week of speculation and intense pressure over his position the Speaker of the House of Commons has decided to admit defeat and stand down.

But will Michael Martin falling on his sword absolve the entire House of Commons?

Not if the mood of the nation is anything to go by. After all, how has Martin become solely responsible for MPs' excessive expense claims?

Why should he also be solely to blame for bringing a judicial review on whether the Freedom of Information Act could be applied to MPs expenses or whether they could be exempted? Most MPs backed the move and even David Cameron had to be warned by his own party whips not to stand in the Speaker's way over the issue because of serious howlers among his own frontbench MPs on the issue.

The Speaker's role is partly ceremonial, partly administrative. He has a staff like any other manager and he monitors the rules in order to make sure they are adhered to both in the chamber and in other matters such as expenses.

But if MPs

Given the current constitutional crisis that we seem to be suffering in the UK it would be easy to forget that there is real parliamentary business taking place at the moment.

But in the week before MPs take their spring break it is worth pointing out that on their return to parliament the House of Lords will examine the controversial coroners and justice bill for the second time as it makes is progress through both houses.

There are many contentious parts of this bill. Yet for me one of the most worrying aspects of the proposals the Lords will have to consider is one in which potential offenders may not even attend court for the initial hearing and decision on whether there is a case to answer against them.

Instead the proposals are that defendants appear via video link in front of a magistrate who will decide their fate. It is argued that this will be more efficient. It will mean a defendant can go from being initially arrested and charged with an offence to being either remanded

Humans have a remarkable ability to recover from terrible events. Occasionally you look back at difficult periods of your life - the tail-end of a bad relationship, the death of a loved one - and wonder how on earth you got through it.

Let's hope we get to do that about now. Over in the States, Americans are still basking in the sense of hope and momentum which Barack Obama's election triggered. In power for months now, he remains popular and sensible, and it feels as if the country is entering a new age.

The UK could not be more different. At the moment it's hard to see the light. There is no party untainted by the scandal (although, to be fair, Lib Dem claims pale into insignificance next to Labour and Conservative excesses). There is no individual to turn to. Sure, some MPs have a spotless record, but parliament's attempt to seal itself off from the Freedom of Information Act earlier this year - in a backbench bill supported by the government and the Speaker - have confirmed a