At the same time, Labour made a point of opening up government to business influence, without ever really considering that businessmen are not in the habit of giving something for nothing. Millionaire Geoffrey Robinson's influence snaked through New Labour - disproportionately because, despite the hype, the rich and wealthy are not naturally attracted to New Labour. The more that New Labour boasted of its financial transparency, the more obvious its makeshift links to business became, especially since they were put together with such indecent haste. New Labour's nouveaux riche were likely to attract some comment anyway, but with the ostentatious protestations of clean hands and abstemious lifestyles, the scandals that followed were entirely predictable. The character issue won Labour the election, and it is unrealistic to imagine that it would just go away, leaving parliament to return to business as usual.
Character is now everything in political life.
The prime minister's overplayed trump card is to put his personal reputation on the line. With character dominating public life, it is of course understandable that where the government falls down is where ministers fail to live up to the puritanical ideal that they have created. The protests that newspapers ought not to be interested in the private lives of philandering Robin Cook, cruising Ron Brown or Jack Straw's dope-smoking son is laughable. The impact of such personal scandals is entirely degrading, not just to the politicians concerned but to the public as a whole. With politicians that claim a monopoly on the moral high-ground, there is nothing to do but drag them down, expose their moral foibles and persuade ourselves that they are humanly flawed like us.