The Night I Saw Jeremy Hunt Hide Behind A Tree Before Dinner With James Murdoch

There are moments writing about politics when one thinks: could this actually get any sillier? Modern government is particularly prone to looking daft because it is built on two incompatible ideas, one old and the other relatively new. The first idea is that government should appear to be relatively, given the age-old constraints, dignified. Ministers rely on protocol and the flummery of office so that they look authoritative, in order that we, the citizenry, comply when they tell us what to do.