29th January:

Your congenial host is finally recovering from a nasty bout of Influenzavirus B. And before anyone asks, this was proper flu rather than man-flu - the kind that knocks you on your arse for a week in a sweaty pit of delirium, convinced the curtains are coming off the wall to steal your face. One of the remarkable side-effects of this flu was a genuinely intense depression that lasted for almost 48 hours. I guess it is natural that any virus infecting your body will also have an impact on your brain function, but I certainly didn't expect to feel so low or so slow. At one point, even daytime television seemed challenging. It's easy to be flippant about the flu until you remember that it actually kills 12,000 people in the UK every year. The world-wide mortality figure is somewhere in the region of 400,000 to 1.4 million. Which is actually bloody scary. Suffice to say, I'll be using the word much more cautiously in the future.

It would appear that some material changes have been made to the "How to be a Politician" handbook - the large leather-bound tome that I imagine is handed out to you on your first day as an elected MP. In years gone by, the first whiff of scandal or impropriety would immediately result in a resignation letter and a public apology, and the offending (offensive?) parliamentarian would then disappear off the radar for a few years to lick his wounds before securing a cushy non-Executive Directorship with one of the large petrochemical companies or merchant banks. Now, however, the handbook chapter entitled "What to do when you've been caught with your hand in the till" seems to direct politicians to 'tough it out' in the full glare of the media spotlight. Witness the recent spectacle of Peter Hain / Wendy Alexander / Derek Conway appearing grim-faced in front of the television cameras denying any wrong-doing and espousing the need to "get on with the job I was elected to do". "Resigning would be the easy way out", they all say. "I'm a fighter , not a quitter", they all say. "I believe in the need to knuckle down and get on with hard work of representing my constituency", they all say. Until such time as guilt is irrefutable or the rozzers are called in to investigate.

Three cheers, then, for the three pillars of any modern democracy: nepotism, cronyism and deviancy.