I would like to make some comments about the reported breach of smoking rules by shadow minister of justice, José Herrera.

... just a little humility would have resulted in an enhancement of integrity...- Colin W. Garnett, Lija

I am writing not in any partisan endeavour to make party-political capital out of the situation, as I have no connection with either party, though I do have some sympathy with centre-left viewpoints.

Essentially, the issue is no more than a storm in a tea cup. Yet, I do feel that there are, even in so trivial an issue, important elements affecting the integrity and probity of those who govern us.

When I was a child, my grandmother would frequently admonish us with the well-known axiom: “Look after the pennies, the pounds will look after themselves.” Initially, I had always thought she was talking about how we should deal with our pocket money. However, on reflection, I am sure she was also advising us that we need to make sure that the small things in our lives were working effectively, if we are ultimately to be trusted with the more weighty matters of life.

Smoking in the corridors of power is relatively low on the Richter scale of offences. Yet it is clearly not permitted. So why didn’t Dr Herrera simply admit that he had been caught out say “mea culpa” and apologise for what had been a very minor breach of parliamentary protocol? Surely, a little humility at that point would have gone a long way. “Yes, I was smoking and shouldn’t have been. I was wrong. Sorry.” End of story. So why the ludicrous, barely plausible excuse, followed by Labour’s obfuscatory smokescreen (no pun intended) about BWSC chimneys, answering a question that had not even been asked?

Perhaps all sides of the political elite would do well to remember Denis Healey’s dictum “When you are in the hole, it is time to stop digging”.

All the while the rest of us lesser mortals, men and women of the streets, are watching and listening, as a senior politician seems to have disregarded a minor rule and offered a token excuse. All so trivial really. Something that we all do.

Yet when we see it being done by those from whom we should expect better, this small issue may have corrosive consequences on public trust and confidence in those who govern us well beyond its actual significance.

I am sure that just a little humility would have resulted in an enhancement of integrity for the shadow minister of justice, who would have been seen to have made a minor misjudgement, accepted a reprimand and apologised graciously. Where’s the problem?