THE GREAT AND THE GOOD HAVE DESCENDED INTO A CESSPIT OF SLIME

ARE we moving into an age where sleaze is becoming run-of-the-mill rather than the unacceptable exception? It was not all that long ago when a list of the qualities that were not simply admired but expected – even insisted upon – would have included courage, integrity and loyalty.

It was not a “class” thing, no way confined to toffs, to be a British gent. I recall Attlee, Bevin, Bevan. A Tory voter might disagree with them but they were as much gents as Old Etonians. Today I open my daily paper to see yet another supposedly leading figure exposed as being wreathed in sleaze.

The Labour Party has happily taken huge subsidies from an orgiast who has uttered ultra-Right-wing racist opinions. Jeremy Corbyn is silent. Deputy leader Tom Watson defends the reptile vigorously. Clement Attlee would have thrown his contaminated contributions back in his face.

Some thoroughly unsavoury pieces of work connive to muzzle a 300-year-old free press that the democratic world has copied. Perhaps understandably. Investigative journalism is a nightmare for the shoddy, cowardly and dishonest.

Ex-premiers and ministers who once swore an oath of loyalty to us all now denounce a perfectly honest referendum.

And as for over-stuffed salary packages, the gap between the working man’s wage and the fortunes shovelled into the back pockets of the fat cats has reached staggering levels. It is hard to be proud of anything any more and even harder of those who fancy themselves as they swan from cushy billet to cushy billet, often after a litany of failure.

Actually there ARE good, honest, straightforward men and women, and talented with it, but they seem to feature less and less in the establishment that actually runs the country.