Cometh the hour, buggereth off the man. 

Yes it’s been quite a week for those bold warriors in the cause of truth, justice and the furtherance of personal gain.

First up we had the honourable member — interpret that how you will — for Newark Patrick Mercer, who belatedly quit his seat after being caught red-handed defrauding the public purse. 

Mercer quit mere hours ahead of the publication of report by the Commons standards committee into his dishonourable dealings.

For anyone who missed the specific details of Mercer’s malfeasance it went something like this: the former British Army colonel was caught having asked parliamentary questions for an anticipated cash injection of several thousand pounds from a fictitious lobbying company in a sting by the media last year.

What is it with politicians and brown paper bags? They’re like crack to them.

In a no-doubt carefully choreographed statement on Tuesday and surrounded by party apparatchiks Mercer said, and I quote: “I am an ex-soldier and I believe that when I have got something wrong you’ve got to ’fess up and get on with it.

“No point shilly-shallying about and trying to avoid it,” he added, which rather begs the question as to why it took him 12 months to get round to belly-flopping on his bayonet.

“What has happened has happened and I am ashamed of it,” he said.

Okay, so far so Tory, but Mercer has previous when it comes to pre-empting official inquiries and criminal investigations. 

Readers may recall that it was Mercer who in 2010, hours before the publication of the Saville report into the massacre of 14 innocent civilians 38 years earlier on Bloody Sunday, condemned the possibility that those soldiers responsible could be prosecuted for murder.

On that occasion also he didn’t bother waiting for the findings, which were even more damning than anyone expected, before claiming that such prosecutions would undermine army morale and increase the likelihood of present-day troops being put in the dock for controversial killings in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Well, we can’t have that now can we? And anyway they’re only brown people, who cares?

The standards committee published its report on Thursday and it made eye-watering reading even by the gutter-dredging standards of the Tory party.

The report found that Mercer had tabled Commons questions and offered a Westminster security pass after signing a deal that paid him £4,000, and that he had “deliberately evaded” rules and “inflicted significant reputational damage” on Parliament.

But there’s more. It went on: “We are not aware of a case relating to a sitting MP which has involved such a sustained and pervasive breach of the House’s rules on registration, declaration and paid advocacy.”

The investigation also unearthed video which showed him talking about a visit to Israel where he told an 18-year-old girl “you look like a bloody Jew.”

As previously noted, Mercer likes to make much of his former military career, but it would appear that he may have become at least temporarily confused and believed he had served with the Third Reich.

When he was asked about the incident he said he had been “very tired at the time.”

Well, we’ve all been there haven’t we? Miss your morning coffee, abuse an ethnic minority.

With a track record like that it’s no wonder Nigel Farage was mooted to stand as a potential successor for his Nottinghamshire seat. No-one would have noticed the difference.

But no, the Ukip supremo also ducked the final reckoning, apparently on the grounds he didn’t think he could win.

Tut, tut Nigel! Where’s that “Do or Die” spirit and indomitable British pluck we’ve been hearing so much about?

Still, he always has his loyal uber-lieutenants to fly the flag for him. Which flag is a slightly different matter however.

Step forward one Neil Hamilton, someone who knows quite a bit about egregious conduct, disgracing Parliament, jumping ship at the last minute and has also been known to do a good line in racist abuse.

Now Ukip deputy chair — which as desirable job descriptions go is up there with substitute suicide bomber, Max Clifford’s body double or being Prince Charles — Hamilton exhibited all his hard-learned political savvy and winning personality to suggest that his was the party for “decent” BNP voters.

He told the BBC that there were “a lot of decent people” who had previously voted for the BNP because they felt their concerns about immigration were not being heard.

“They feel their communities are being swamped by immigrants from outside,” he goose-stepped.

Yes, they’re the worst kind, those pesky immigrants from OUTSIDE.

“Now those people, the decent supporters of the BNP, from the last election, who weren’t true BNP supporters at all, I am sure that quite a few of them are voting for a respectable alternative, which is Ukip.”

Which sort of says it all really.