‘I call this meeting of the Subcommittee of the National Broadca- …’

‘Just a minute. Subcommittee? I thought you asked all of us here?’

‘As I was saying, the Subcommittee on the Ethics of Receiving Gifts, Favours and Inducements is called to order. And we’re not all here if you’ll notice.’

‘So who’s miss- … oh, she’s not here. Isn’t that a bit dodgy?’

‘No, because she’s not a member of the Subcommittee. Why should she be here?’

‘Oh. So who is a member?’

‘The rest of you are. And I am chair. I appointed you all this morning. And we’re going to sort out once and for all this scandal about gifts.’

‘What gifts have caused a scandal?’

‘None, and there never will be. The scandal is her big mouth putting the story on the front page. Absolutely disgraceful.’

(General mutterings of hear, hear’ around the table.)

‘Why, what did she say?’

‘Having you not been watching the news?’

‘No. Never watch TV. Or read the papers. Load of old codswallop.’

‘Well she’s gone and returned a gift and called for a proper code of conduct.’

‘Returned a –’

‘Yes, hard to believe, isn’t it? And it was only an i-phone, for heaven’s sake. Took me an hour on my i-phone this morning to calm them down and assure them that the contract is safe.’

‘Code of conduct? What’s she talking about?’

‘Well she seems to think that if we accept gifts from companies, we might be influenced in our decisions.’

‘What a load of cobblers. She’s as good as accused of us taking bribes.’

‘That’s the line we gave the press. Without giving names, obviously. But all that did was pile even more criticism on our heads, while she comes up looking like a cross between Mother Theresa and Joan of Arc.’

(There is a moment of silence as the repercussions sink in. Except for one Commissioner whose mind is on other matters.)

‘Joan of Arc? Like in that boat with all the animals?’

‘So what are we going to do? We can’t let her slander us like that.’

‘Well, what are the defamation laws for? Why don’t we sue her?’

‘For saying there shouldn’t be any corruption or bribes? Get real. And she’s got form. She once beat off a defamation suit from Thaksin, remember.’

‘This just isn’t fair. Why should our hands be tied when over at the Min of Ed they’re busy writing the rules for tea money?’

‘Just a minute. That’s it. You’ve hit the nail on the head. Maybe we should do the same.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, how did the Minister of Education, bless his cotton socks, justify letting rich parents buy school places for their kids? He said it was human nature, so it was going to happen anyway, so they shouldn’t try to stop it. They just need rules to make sure the tea money gets spent properly.’

‘See what you mean. And what’s more natural for a company bidding for a licence than to pass round a few freebies?’

‘All we have to do is draft a code of conduct that says that accepting gifts is OK, because it’s human nature.’

‘Fantastic. Problem solved. Though hang on a minute.’

‘What?’

‘Doesn’t this mean we’ll have to hand the stuff over to the government or something? Isn’t that sort of defeating the purpose? I mean, the free trips to Paris might still be on, but who’s going to send us bottles of wine and brand-name watches if they think they’ll just end up in a government warehouse?’

‘Well, in theory, yes. That’s what the code of conduct will say. But what actually happens could be something else. You know how difficult it is to remember all these civil service rules and regulations. And it would be unreasonable to expect you to remember everything last thing you get given. And our staff might get confused and send the gifts to the wrong place. It could happen.’

‘Of course it could. Only human nature.’