John Woodhouse: What is it about power that brings out shameful antics?
I'VE always had great faith in my fellow human, right from when I was a kid and a passer-by put her life on the line to prevent me scooting off the end of Blackpool's South Pier.
Sadly the impact sent her tumbling into the waves instead. Thirty minutes she was in the water. A long time for any nonagenarian, but especially one in a wheelchair.
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Former Energy Secretary Chris Huhne.
I mention this because such trust has, in recent times, been eroded. I'm beginning to wonder, is there anyone out there who isn't a gun-toting nutcase, drug-fuelled sports cheat, or sexual predator? Or, like a bloke I used to know in our local cribbage team, a combination of all three?
Allegations have, this week alone, been levelled at Britain's most senior Catholic cleric and a high-ranking Liberal Democrat.
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It's coming to something when Premier League footballers are occupying the moral high ground.
Politicians, of course, we're used to. The only surprise when it came to Chris Huhne's speeding offence is that it didn't take place with three topless models in the back.
MPs in particular seem to get a thrill out of leading a double life. Indeed, I find it difficult to look at any member of the Conservative front bench without imagining them being thrashed with a cat o' nine tails in a dungeon. Not in a sexual way, just generally.
It's as if they feel they're untouchable – an idea they sadly don't apply to those around them. I mean, when David Mellor was ravishing that actress in a Chelsea strip did he honestly think no-one would find out? Especially when he was whirling a rattle round his head at the same time.
It seems to me that positions of responsibility bring out the worst in people in this country. Power always seems to go to their heads. Who could forget when Dr Who was caught in flagrante with that Sea Devil?
Of course, maybe we set our standards too high. In much of Europe, for instance, the sexual antics of public figures barely warrant a mention. The French take it for granted that their President will spend his non-Parliamentary hours with a wine waitress on a water bed. In Italy they're just pleased if their leader's current squeeze has reached the age of consent.
It seems to me the question we in Britain are, in 2013, increasingly asking ourselves is 'who do we trust?' We're used to this poser when assessing electricity suppliers, second-hand car dealers, or who to side with on issues of local splash pool provision, but to have to apply it to pretty much all areas of wider life is saddening.
It'd be nice to know those seeking public office are doing so for the public betterment rather than a short cut to the kind of depravity generally only seen on post-watershed editions of Emmerdale.
Trouble is there's very little way of telling who's 'true' and who isn't. All you can do is trust your instinct, a not infallible process, as those who believed Nick Clegg's pledge on tuition fees would surely attest.
There is one thing worth noting, though. The flood of hopeless letdowns in recent times makes you glad we have the free press to expose them rather than, as some would prefer, 64-pages of state-authorised Sudoku.
Having said that, if anyone from Call The Midwife is revealed as a sex pest, I'll be gutted.
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