The Mills of Justice Grind Slow

David Mills, husband of the Minister for Blanched Quadrennial Pachyderms who estranged him as soon as he got into trouble, has had his sentence quashed by Italy's highest appeals court and has presumably been released into the community until his next appearance in his other trial "involving the allegedly fraudulent trading of TV film rights". Mills was found guilty last year of being bribed by Silvio Berlusconi to perjure himself; he appealed and the conviction was upheld, but he will not serve his sentence because the charge is subject to a statute of limitations and the alleged payment was more than ten years ago. Berlusconi's own trial for "corrupting" this innocent flower of British manhood "looks highly likely to collapse before the final appeal stage".

The Glorious Successor, who gave Mills' wife the customary "ringing endorsement" by being too weak to sack her last year, must be looking with some envy at the workings of the Italian legal system, whereby anyone with the means to draw out the proceedings for a sufficient length of time can walk free from the court without a stain on his reputation. All Mills has to do is pay a quarter of a million euros to the Italian state (viz. Silvio Berlusconi) as compensation for "giving evasive evidence" - surely a more congenial penance than all those tedious inquiries and makeshift cover-ups with which the British state is often forced to concern itself.