Sir Anthony Hammond may have decided that every minister touched by the Hinduja imbroglio deserved the benefit of the doubt. But the British people got there before him. That's the way it almost always is with intimations of impropriety. A government needs to be already rotten, or palpably at the end of its natural life, for such stories to disturb popular acquiescence in the belief that most politicians are pretty dodgy anyway. It is doubtful whether Profumo could have unhinged Macmillan, or Aitken helped destroy John Major, had the revelations occurred when these leaders were in their prime.
Labour is fortunate to be so untouchable.
Hammond's forensics, although benign, still reveal a shocking mess. In a different national mood, they would have produced a conviction not an acquittal. Peter Mandelson's own lack of transparency would also have counted against him rather than, conveniently, in his favour. But not a blow was struck. We shrug our shoulders.