The noose tightens?

A week after the arrest of Ruth Turner aka Blair's gate keeper, the rozzers investigating the 'cash for honours affair' have rearrested Lord Levy, Labour's chief fundraiser. He was questioned, not over the affair itself but on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. This could confirm the rumours that it is Blair himself who is at the centre of the mire, with his obedient acolytes doing all they can to muddy the path to his door. Concerned, as he clearly is, over where his place in history will be, he must be worried that he will be remembered chiefly for the shambles that is Iraq and for being the first serving prime minister to be questioned by police conducting a criminal investigation. All this from the man who came to power promising to cut the sleaze out of British politics.

The reputation of politicians in general could not get much lower but they do not seem to care. What annoys me most about this story now is my belief that tonight, the political machine at Number 10 is not looking at how to restore confidence in the Home Office or at new, imaginative approaches to Iraq and the wider Middle East. It is not concerned with global warming, the NHS or Northern Ireland. Instead it is grubbing around trying to find out who knows what, it is hypothesising on what the law may or may not know and how best to deflect any coming prosecutions. It is simply trying to save its own skin. We deserve better.