Contradiction between Nick Clegg's words and actions

I really liked Nick Cleggs conference speech last week, unfortunately it doesn't match his actions when it comes to things like drugs, prostitution or even reform of parliament.

Last I heard he was still backing the speaker of the house and some other MPs to decide the new rules for expenses, not exactly revolutionary.

I would have thought that expenses rules would be fairly simple - after all we have the ready-made set of expenses rules that apply to the rest of us - HMRC has clear, well documented rules about expenses - they are quite generous enough and the legions of self employed people in the UK manage to (and are required by law) to account for their spending with receipts, etc.

It's not unreasonable to remove perks - outside of London, an MPs salary is almost unattainable, certainly in the top 0.5%, and nationally it's in the top 5%, and given the number of staff MPs can employ at no cost to themselves, the workload isn't unreasonable, nor is the travel to/from westminster.

The 2nd home in london scam is pure profiteering, it's beyond a perk, and in many cases it crosses into blatent fraud and property speculation. A more reasonable alternative would be to provide a minimal allowance, which the MP can "top up" to make rental or mortgage payments, but any mortgage would be held by the state rather than the MP - when the MP no longer requires the property they relinquish it and any financial gains (or losses) are left with the state (which after all paid).