Readers respond to Nesrine Malik’s article warning about the corrosive effect of political sleaze in the UK
The disgraceful Owen Paterson saga has provoked many articles, including Nesrine Malik’s, about the vulnerability of pillars of governance once imagined to be a deep part of British identity (I have lived under corrupt regimes – the cynicism stalking Britain is all too familiar, 8 November). Instead of thinking of these things as providentially ordained, there is hope to be found by recalling how they were made by ordinary hands.
Imagine that today all new judges were appointed by Dominic Raab. Yet, for us, the independent appointment of judges is quite new. It was wrested from the grip of the lord chancellor during the Blair government, and as a headhunter I played a part in that. (I led the search work to recruit the first Judicial Appointments Commission and, more significantly, its vital, little-remembered predecessor: the body which in a brief life blew apart the lord chancellor’s cosy club.)
