The Audit Commission must be beginning to dread opening any post that looks like it has been sent from Kent.

Kent County Council has now fired off a second letter to the Commission, outlining more details about its formal complaint about being labelled "negligent" over its deposits in Icelandic banks. That's on top of the letter it sent last week that was also a formal complaint.

At the same time as making these formal protests and confirming that it is still weighing up legal action, KCC today called for "a new relationship between local government, the Audit Commission and Central Government."

The thrust of this call to arms, made at a cabinet meeting at County Hall, is that all three need to "join forces" to do something about the international financial crisis in what a brief report to a meeting of KCC's cabinet today described as "these turbulent times."

I can't see the Commission falling over itself to answer this rallying cry - particularly given that in its report, KCC's chief executive Peter Gilroy states: "The Audit Commission has completely failed to take a strategic leadership role in what is an international financial crisis" and "they have fundamentally missed the point that the game has changed."

Is that really the kind of language that is likely to win the Commission round to this new crusade while it is also dealing with a complaint from the same organisation?

Meanwhile, not to be left out, the opposition Labour group at County Hall has also been putting pen to paper and it too has written to the Audit Commission. It strikes a rather more emollient tone, with Cllr Mike Eddy articulating his concern that "the tone of Mr Gilroy and Mr Carter’s letter runs the risk of irretrievably breaking down the previously positive relationship between the County Council and the Audit Commission." A bit cheeky but I can't say I'm surprised they've joined in.

Council leader Paul Carter also had a dig at the media's coverage of the issue, saying that we have been "rather naive" in failing to appreciate the difficult environment in which councils operate when it comes to depositing money with banks. Whether you agree or not, one thing the media can take some responsibility for is putting far more information into the public domain about treasury management than most of us ever knew about before.

WHICH, in a roundabout way, brings me to the latest furore about MPs' expenses. There doesn't seem to be much more to be added to the unfortunate situation Jacqui Smith finds herself in. She's certainly been damaged by a seriously embarrassing oversight and I'm inclined to think that once a politician becomes the subject of ridicule - albeit not her fault - they are living on borrowed time.

Her husband's stumbling apology reminded me of the former Conservative minister David Mellor, who after being exposed for cheating on his wife, famously posed for a photocall with his wife and children in an effort to persuade the public everything was fine.

However, why is it that the demand from politicians for a change to the system and rules about expenses, along with greater transparency, only ever seems to come when someone has been accused of breaking those rules and things have gone palpably wrong? If the rules are flawed, then why has it taken so long for MPs to say so?