There’s no smoking gun in this case. It’s just one damn thing after another

In scene 9 of William Congreve’s The Way of the World, amid a fiendish tangle of desire, deception and general waywardness (Sir Wilfull Witwoud: ‘Ahey! Wenches? Where are the wenches?’), Lady Wishfort speaks for many of us as she cuts the discussion short. ‘This will never do!’ she declares.

This will never do. To my dismay this week, as the nation’s kitchen tables buzz with instant opinion concerning a particular politician’s private life, Filipina nannies, rail warrants, visa applications, DNA tests, security warnings, government cars, and the bearing (or otherwise) of any or all of these on a person’s fitness for public office, I find myself bereft of any reasoned opinion at all, beyond a matronly urge to sweep all arguments aside, and join Lady Wishfort in her conclusion. It won’t do.

It just won’t do. I can’t put my finger on why, but it won’t. I wonder whether there is more to be said.