Blame it on Rory Bremner

It is always cheering to encounter a politician who refuses to offer up the easy answer to challenging questions but instead delves beneath the surface and, with candour, delivers himself of an opinion which runs counter to the popularly held belief. So let’s hear it this week for Peter Hain, the agreeably tanned candidate for the post of deputy leader of the Labour party.

The question in this particular case was this: why does the British public view politicians, and especially leading members of the current administration, with cynicism and bitterness? The easy, glib answer for Peter would have been: ‘Because of the opportunistic and cynical behaviour of people such as myself.’ That’s certainly the popular view, but it is an analysis which Mr Hain — having given the matter much thought — eschewed. His own answer to this conundrum was beguiling and counter-intuitive: ‘Rory Bremner’, he said.

Mr Hain had been talking about a hoax telephone call — of admittedly questionable morality — perpetrated by the impressionist.