Politics

There is no doubt that this will have been an awful and incredibly stressful time for Mr Hayward and senior BP figures personally but the problem is that he and BP keep reminding us of us this as if we should all feel sorry for them. That is just not going to fly. Nobody cares about BP - they care about the totaldevastation caused and what can be done about it.

The problem is Triesman hadn't got previous and wasn't looking to exploit his private or public position for his own gain. It seems that Sarah Ferguson was and that once again she will have to build up her fragile public persona, which is her career currency, once again.

The whole story "whiffs" of mistrust. Mistrust of the bullying helpline to keep schtum on sensitive issues, mistrust of the PRs (real or not) lurking in the background around the motives for Ms Pratt's first ill-advised comments, mistrust of the Prime Minister and Number 10's culture and mistrust of David Cameron and his ability to make political capital out of any situation.

I've just spent an hour watching Gordon Brown deliver his crucial speech to the Labour Party Conference. For a man who struggles with what...