Mr Justice Tugendhat delivered a ferocious verdict last week. Undercover reporters from the Sunday Times claimed they had found Peter Cruddas, co-Treasurer of the Conservative Party, offering influence in return for wodges of cash. With damning language, the judge found against the paper, leaving it with costs and damages of around £700,000.
I don’t want to discuss the merits of the case. Cruddas, who had to resign when the story came out, may have been unjustly maligned. Conversely, the Sunday Times is going to the Court of Appeal, so it may be that the paper is the true victim. I want to look at the judge’s reasoning instead, because it unconsciously reveals how platitudes, evasions and logical fallacies hide corruption in British public life.
If I have read him right, Tugendhat believes that corruption cannot exist in the British state because nothing the British state allows can be corrupt.
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