One really begins to wonder when our pre-election politics is going to get serious. A little trawl in what has been said in the past by interesting people about this and that yielded some comments that apply neatly to all the mudslinging in which both major parties are indulging.

One might start off with “History is just the portrayal of crimes and misfortunes”. Ideally, politicians who are under suspicion should do the right thing and resign immediately after which they can set about rehabilitating their reputation more effectively but, sadly, they have a tendency to hang on grimly. Their defence, as was once said by one of another’s work, is both good and original except that the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.

No doubt, even if they were to come to actually resigning they would botch that too – rather like the anarchist who attempted to assassinate emperor Frans Ferdinand: he threw a bomb which missed (and didn’t explode), then took cyanide, which didn’t work and, finally, threw himself into a river that was too shallow to drown in….

It looks as if the next two weeks until that Important Day are going to be more of the same.