THE Rector of Chester has called for an immediate General Election because the electorate has “no confidence” in parliament following the expenses scandal.

In a no-holds barred sermon, the Rev David Chesters, of St John the Baptist Church, attacked the corporate greed of the bankers and said many members of Parliament have now been “milking us dry”.

Mr Chesters told his congregation: “As you know, for many years I was a civil servant and for the last 10 years of my service a senior civil servant, and in all my years working for the Crown I have never seen such a disgraceful set of circumstances as we are seeing daily on our television screens and in our newspapers.

“It gives the impression the many members of our Parliament both Lords and Commons have thrown respect for the nation and its people out of the window.”

Mr Chesters, who was HM Customs’ head of external affairs, continued: “Parliament, and that most certainly includes the Speaker of the House of Commons, have let the Queen down and let down us the electorate in a scandal of monumental proportions; it’s a scandal that implicates all political parties, although I have to say that Cameron and Clegg have been far more robust than both Gordon Brown the Prime Minister and Michael Martin, the man who ‘speaks’ on behalf of the House of Commons.”

Mr Chesters said Parliament should be called to account.

“The time has come when we the nation should decide – and the election must be called by the middle of next year – that election should be now. The country has no confidence in its Government or its Parliament… the Aegean stables must be cleaned out.

“In the past 12 months we have seen corporate greed bring us to our knees in a recession and Parliament itself got terribly worked up about Sir Fed Goodwin’s astronomical pension provision.”

Mr Chesters added: “So now it is clear that many members of Parliament have had their hands in our pockets as taxpayers and milking us dry.

“Its no good the House of Commons wringing its hands and bemoaning the recession as if they have had nothing to do with it. They failed to regulate the financial sector and my goodness they have failed to regulate themselves. It was corporate greed that brought the banks low and it’s parliamentary greed that has brought the whole democratic process into total disrepute.”