Chop off the tentacles

Jeremy Hunt’s brazen performance in the Commons defending the shady links between a “special adviser” in his department and the Murdoch media barons was a high-profile example of the degeneration of government into a wholly-owned subsidiary of big business.

There was a time when the politician in charge of a department where staff were caught red-handed jumping into bed with a firm it was supposed to regulate would have resigned in order to preserve the standing of the democratic system.

Not Hunt, who contented himself by washing his hands of responsibility for events beyond his control as the head of one of his minions rolled.

But if the members of his department are not under his control, then clearly he is not fit to do the job of running it.

This kind of casual shrug of the shoulders when a government is found to be safeguarding business rather than the interests of the people reinforces the belief of millions of those who see Westminster politicians as craven servants of power rather than servants of the people who elected them.

Little wonder voter turnout is plummeting.

And things are set to get worse as the wave of privatisation identified by delegates at various trade union conferences across Britain this week stretches to the very heart of government.

This rampant drive to outsource and slash the state opens the door to even greater corruption funded by our money and in the interests of the powerful.

After all, the powerful are never going to do anything for the good of the many — that’s what the state and government are meant to be there for.

So in the interests of democracy Hunt’s head should roll.

But this shameless government of Bullingdon Berties, there to represent business in every area of policy, must be next up for the chop.

And a powerful new code of conduct which chops off the tentacles of big business and holds politicians to account should follow swiftly behind.

It’s not enough for Ed Miliband to seek to use the latest dollop of old boy’s network slime as a missile to land a blow on David Cameron’s puffed-out administration.

He must also use the opportunity to make a real break with the culture that the wider public believes is below the surface in all of politics.

The warning of Hansard’s poll is ignored at our society’s peril.

Trump card
Unwelcome billionaire visitor Donald Trump has stirred up a storm again complaining that he’d never have built his bitterly opposed private golf course on pristine Scottish coastline if he’d known that a wind farm was going to be built nearby.

Judging by the poll results on Wednesday the Scottish public would be quite happy to help him pack.