He still believes that, at root, most of the people he worked with, following most of the codes in place, were good administrators doing a good, selfless job. But the essential task is reassurance, not doubt-clouded invigilation. The task is revealing the true world he knows, or thinks he knows, to a watching populace. This is not, perhaps, so very different from the role Nolan and Neill came eventually to see for themselves. The subject of conduct in public life can return to newspaper front pages and the public eye very rapidly.
Public eyes open wide.
It would be wrong to declare seven years of toil gone to waste, but the headlines are still awful and yesterday's poll results still damning. If Sir Nigel Wicks believes in reassurance, he suddenly needs it by the tonne. In part, naturally enough. Some of the current stuff is mere political putrescence. When Archie Norman delivers Asda memorial lectures on planning permission purity and puts the boot into Margaret and Mark Thatcher's moneyed mate, Wafic, he makes himself ridiculous.