The slippery slope

Just how corruptible am I? I like to think I'm honest and decent, but if I found myself in a situation where I could bend all the rules and get away with it, would I yield to temptation?

If I were an MP and I knew I could fiddle my expenses outrageously, and I knew most MPs saw it as normal behaviour, would I join in? Or would I resist the trend and keep to the straight and narrow?

If I were a high earner and I knew I could fiddle my taxes and not pay what I ought to pay, if I knew I could salt money away in a secret account, would I bury my scruples and scoff at the public interest?

I'm not likely to be in any such situation, given my humble employment, but I sometimes wonder if my self-righteous objections to such immorality are truly sincere.

After all, I'm corrupt enough when it comes to the petty everyday rules I happily cock a snook at - ignoring speed limits, dodging bus queues, embellishing my CV, squandering fossil fuels. Would it take very much to up the ante a notch or two, to be a bit more ambitious in my misdemeanours?

Actually I think it would seriously go against the grain. I'm not cut out for badness. I believe in social rules, I believe in personal responsibility, I believe in fairness and justice. Large-scale, flagrant screwing-the-system is not in my nature. I would feel too guilty, too selfish, too degenerate, too shifty. I would feel like the infamous used-car salesman. And how low-life is that?

No, I shall continue to look down my nose at those who are willingly corrupted, in the full knowledge that were I in their shoes I wouldn't be so decadent. I would be the steadfast goody-goody refusing to join in and despairing of the weak-willed suggestibility of the human race. I would sit tight and leave them to it.

Fruit and nuts

The British government has just spent £20,000 taking a man to court for allegedly stealing a banana worth 25p. Clearly the unauthorised handling of a banana is a particularly heinous crime that calls for the full force of the law to deter other banana-abusers.

Never mind such trivial misdemeanours as racist attacks, gay-bashing or sexual assault. They can wait. We're talking serious offences that have to be stamped on mercilessly. The heights of human depravity.

And forget any misguided leniency. When James Gallagher was challenged about the banana by the Birmingham deli, he promptly offered to pay for it. But of course the shopkeeper refused. The police could have simply warned him not to do it again. Naturally they didn't. No funny business, my son, you're nicked.

According to the Crown Prosecution Service, the cost of the item was irrelevant. The only question was whether there was good enough evidence for a court case and whether the case was "in the public interest".

I fail to see how subjecting Mr Gallagher to a meandering two-day trial and nit-picking arguments by lawyers could possibly be "in the public interest". And as for the evidence - he was acquitted!

It's not the first time huge sums of money, and court time, have been wasted on footling offences that could have been disposed of in ten minutes.

I'm sure the average member of the public, if asked, could think of any number of better responses to the errant banana, not involving bewigged judges and pompous courtrooms. They could also think of better ways of spending £20,000. Like locking up a few more drunken thugs.

It's the person who sanctioned the court case who really needs to be prosecuted - for wasting police time, wasting taxpayers' money and bringing the law into disrepute.

Photo: James Gallagher