It was Louis Heren, a foreign correspondent for the Times, who said – in words famously cited by Jeremy Paxman – that when a politician told him something in confidence, he always thought: “Why is this lying bastard lying to me?” In recent years, it often seems, Heren’s dictum has spread out to the British population at large, and is now smeared across the lens through which it views its public servants.
In this perception, the halls of Westminster are crammed with greasers and fixers, intent – if only they still could – on squeezing every penny from the public purse to tart up their second homes. When the political classes are discussed, the phrase: “Well, they’re all the same, aren’t they, out for themselves” has become a blandly acceptable conversation-sealer. And then there are the hospital managers, desperately covering up life-threatening cock-ups, and doting Lords and doddery judges and lying police chiefs. We have almost come to relish the notion that Britain is in a duplicitous mess.
