Who was Thomas Paine?

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Katherine Mangu-Ward, associate editor of the right-leaning, Washington-based magazine Reason, says Paine is enjoying a comeback amongst both left-wing and right-wing American thinkers.

"Everyone wants a piece of Paine these days. After languishing in obscurity for years, he's enjoying a renaissance. He's the Mickey Rourke of the Founders.

"The left loves him because he hated the Church. The right loves him because he's a freedom-loving founding father."

Cheryl Hudson of Oxford University says Paine, the history-shaping Brit, should be taught more widely in British schools: "At the centre of his thought was a profound trust in the people and in their 'common sense'. He encouraged the public's aspirations for a better, more democratic world and he expressed his support in a rigorous and robust vernacular style.

"Today, political leaders on both sides of the Atlantic pay lip service to concepts like 'personal empowerment' but Paine truly believed in the transformative power that the people could and should wield."

Tantalising words, especially amid the current crisis in public trust of parliament. Chad Goodwin, chair of the Thomas Paine Society, says his hero would have been "astounded that we still have a hereditary monarchy... not to mention an unelected upper chamber".

But this scandal unfolded in Britain's highest elected chamber - the House of Commons.

"Paine thought just because something seemed to be working, on whose behalf was it working? He was a constant revolutionary, " says Mr Goodwin. "He believed that government shouldn't be fixed and that it was up to every generation to say how they should be governed.

"He would have been a great supporter of the Freedom of Information Act [under which MPs' expenses came to be revealed]. He always said there is nothing mysterious about government."

Ms Hudson says there are similarities and differences between the disillusionment with mainstream politics today and the anger about politics that drove Paine and his supporters 250 years ago: "Paine and his contemporaries were just as scathing about the venal and corrupt nature of their politicians as people are today - the difference was that they, especially Paine, had something constructive to say about the alternative to that corrupt politics."