First it was the bankers. Then the politicians were caught with their hands in the till. Now it’s the media, the police and, by association, the prime minister. One by one the pillars of the establishment are crumbling. Britain is a nation fallen to decadence in decline. Whatever happened to old-fashioned integrity?
It’s an attractive thesis. The rush of revelations in the phone-hacking affair has turned a squall into a storm. David Cameron was a young prime minister set on restoring the nation’s self-respect along with its finances. Now he is damagingly implicated in the furore engulfing Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.
The commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police and one of his deputies have resigned amid complaints that the force was at best negligent and at worst corrupt in investigating criminality at Mr Murdoch’s News International. As for the tabloids, illegal interception of voicemail accounts and bribery of police officers was almost routine.