Once again voters in the world's largest democracy have thrown the rascals out. This is no hothead, no radical, no underminer of the British constitution He is a chartered accountant. The Conservatives, a party that chartered accountants might once have unthinkingly voted for, once wore as a badge of pride their respect for the law and the professions The District Auditor is a professional. He deserves all our respect as an impartial sifter of fact and judge - subject always to correction by the courts His judgment stands. In Mr Magill's greyness (he is a senior partner with Deloitte & Touche) lies his trustworthiness. His early work was quietly monitored by no less than the then controller of the Audit Commission, now the exalted deputy governor of the Bank of England, Howard Davies.The other week I happened to sit opposite Mr Magill at a dinner given by the president of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy Grey men: this was their annual congregation.

He gave the accused councillors and officers a hearing - something Ted Knight et al never got. The auditor has been accompanied by solicitors and barristers at every turn.The point is that he has done what the law requires and made a judgment based on a scrupulous (and voluminous) review of the facts It took him nearly six years. All that has changed since then is that audit investigations have got more protracted, more expensive and more legalistic. But to question the auditor's professionalism and deny the legal force of his judgment is an unacceptable attempt to reject the system when it turns against you - a system, incidentally, created by the Conservatives.The way the District Auditor works is not novel or outlandish. These councillors and officers are guilty.Of course the judgment by the District Auditor, John Magill, may yet be rejected by the courts The appeal process has a long way to go. He may eventually be proved wrong in his conclusion that Lady Porter and her political colleagues, along with certain Westminster officers, were "recklessly indifferent" to the existence of a wider sense of appropriate conduct by councillors when they chopped up the borough's housing to suit party calculations.