Spending OUR money to stop US being told the truth about OUR public services...

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: When is a bribe not a bribe? Apparently, it's when taxpayers' money is used to stop NHS staff blowing the whistle on clinical malpractice and criminal negligence in hospitals. This week it was revealed that the health service has spent more than £2million on 52 secret severance deals containing strict gagging clauses to prevent disgruntled ex-employees speaking out. And these payments are only the tip of the iceberg.

DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Hypocrisy and the shaming of Mr Clegg

Deputy Prime minister Nick Clegg

Yesterday, the shamed LibDem leader Nick Clegg cut a very embarrassed figure, as he admitted there was 'no excuse whatsoever' for the way his party has behaved over allegations against their former chief executive.

Perhaps Dave Prentis should have a word with Lord MacDonald about Thames's recent behaviour...

When he's not warming the red benches for Labour, Lord MacDonald acts as Macquarie's senior adviser in Europe

EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Thames Water paid no corporation tax last year thanks to some nifty financial engineering by its owners Macquarie - for which Gus MacDonald (pictured) acts as senior adviser in Europe.

QUENTIN LETTS: Not sure he was up to running a Morecambe candy floss stall

NHS chief executive David Nicholson

Tim Donohoe, 'Senior Responsible Owner for Local Service Provider Programmes' in the NHS, and Sir David Nicholson were subjected to prolonged, destructive scrutiny by the Public Accounts Committee.

Stephen Hester's departure is a huge gamble, and one I fear will backfire

Despite the encomiums from George Osborne it is clear the Chancellor and his political team had come around to the idea Stephen Hester was not the man for the job

ALEX BRUMMER: The sudden departure of Stephen Hester from the Royal Bank of Scotland came as a bolt from the blue to the financial community. The reality is that Osborne, his team and a tame RBS board wanted someone else more willing to do the Chancellor's work. As the biggest shareholder in the bank Osborne has the right to call the shots. But one cannot help thinking that changing the captain at this stage could be a huge error and, in the end, actually slow repair and recovery.

Help me! I'm trapped in a seagull opera

Seven seagulls

One of the first things I hear when I wake is a seagull, or more often a squawkophony of seagulls, who somehow manage to bark, caw, bleat, mewl, whine and gargle, all at the same time, by CRAIG BROWN.

Sexism in the music industry, Jenni? Who'd have thought it...

Jenni Murray

STEVE DOUGHTY: There are quite a number of things that stick in the throat about Dame Jenni Murray's condemnation of sexism in the music world...

The greedy foreign owners of our water firms squeeze customers dry. Thames Water avoiding tax is the final insult

Outrage: Thames's failure to make a proper contribution to the Exchequer is an affront to every hard-working consumer who has to pay their ever-rising, inflation-busting water bills out of taxed income

Sadly, we are getting well used to major corporations avoiding tax - at a cost to the Treasury of £2billion a year - but that a public utility is indulging in such immorality takes the breath away, writes ALEX BRUMMER.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: If we have nothing to hide, why should we have to prove it?

Laptop

Granting the State the right to trawl through every dot and comma of our online existence would be another sinister step down the route of everyone being guilty unless they can prove themselves innocent.

Is the career of Britain's most senior police officer really in danger?

Hogan-Howe

STEPHEN WRIGHT: A frequently-used phrase by Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe since he became head of Scotland Yard is ‘the importance of perception’. But following the 'Plebgate' scandal, this seems truly ironic.

The lawyers were out in force, a yuppy, beady-eyed crowd

Lucy Scott-Moncrieff, president of the Law Society and posh biker, described the legal aid cuts proposed by Justice Secretary Chris Grayling as 'bonkers'

Gosh there were a lot of lawyers at yesterday’s Justice Select Committee meeting. But why had these £200-an-hour types come along to mouldy old Parliament? by QUENTIN LETTS.

STEPHEN GLOVER: The Bishop of London should stop whingeing about baby boomers

STEPHEN GLOVER

Last week, Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls announced that, if re-elected, Labour will cap state pensions, which have so far escaped cuts. In the tax year just ended, welfare for pensioners accounted for £110billion out of £202billion spent on benefits. And on Monday the Bishop of London, the Rt Rev Richard Chartres, suggested that 'the fortunate generation' of which he is part - he is 65 - had 'absorbed' much of the increase in public spending. He said that this raises 'severe questions of inter-generational equity'. But I want to dispute the widespread notion, endorsed by the Bishop, that baby boomers (which I define as people born between 1946 and 1955) are unfairly privileged.

Liam Fox's return to Government front bench looking imminent

Liam Fox

EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Last night, I hear, Liam Fox dined with the Prime Minister at the No 10 flat. ‘The smart money’s on Liam as chief whip,’ says my source.

How to build yourself an endless crisis

Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne

If you were under 25, which would you prefer: living in a crowded London house with a job to go to or staying at home in, say, Barcelona, with little chance of getting any work at all? Asks ANDREW ALEXANDER.

Part-time women doctors ARE a real problem. Why is it sexist to say so?

Anna Soubry

Junior Health Minister Anna Soubry spoke of 'the unintended consequences' of the number of women training to be doctors. What in heaven's name is 'sexist' about that? Asks MELANIE PHILLIPS.

Sucking up to the Germans is no way to remember our Great War heroes, Mr Cameron

British Prime Minister David Cameron

As we approach the centenary of the outbreak of World War I, those responsible for organising the commemoration are in a sorry muddle about how to handle it, writes MAX HASTINGS.

MediaCity UK... does its name not shriek gullibility?

Peter Salmon, head of BBC North (left), pictured with former BBC Director General Mark Thompson, implied BBC TV audience figures have rocketed since the Beeb moved to Salford

To a windswept waterside outside Manchester where the BBC, in an act of (it now admits) political engineering, is moving hundreds of staff at a cost of £1billion, by QUENTIN LETTS.

At least our bulbs have a bright future with Labour

Ask Ed: Ed Miliband is determined to make us all work together to tackle the big issues caused by the lightbulb

Ask Ed Miliband: 'Dear Ed, Your advice, please, on the best way to screw a lightbulb in? Many thanks, Jeff, Salford...' As told to CRAIG BROWN.

EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: BBC's wildlife presenter Kate Humble brands guinea pig 'absolutely delicious'

Humble says: 'I'm sorry to all of you at home with a pet guinea pig, but it was absolutely delicious. It was like a dark chicken meat'

The BBC'S tousle-haired wildlife presenter Kate Humble, 44, enthuses about guinea-pig flesh after sampling the rodent during a visit to Peru for a forthcoming documentary.

Ed Balls in No 10. House prices halved. The worst riots in a century. What if we HAD joined the euro?

ED BALLS

Our economic situation today is no bed of roses but - as historian DOMINIC SANDBROOK imagines - it could have been far, far worse...

Bing

Less sex please - let's talk about what's REALLY taboo

Brave: Stephen Fry this week dared to bring up the thorny subject of mental illness, one of the last taboos remaining in modern Britain

Sometimes it seems as if no subject is off-limits in modern-day Britain - but this week Stephen Fry reminded us that mental health is almost never discussed in public, writes RACHEL JOHNSON.

Tired of being ruled by thick, rich people? Bring back grammar schools

Education: Grammar schools must be reintroduced for the good of the country, says Peter Hitchens

If a democracy is a place where we tell our rulers what to do, why is it illegal to open any new grammar schools, writes PETER HITCHENS.

Coronation dream our politicians betrayed

Coronation dream our politicians have betrayed

SIMON HEFFER: Over the past six decades, key aspects of Britishness and vital institutions have all too often been insulted, rebuffed, ridiculed, despised, attacked and, to all intents and purposes, destroyed.

DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Don't throw a flame into Syria's tinderbox

In Syria itself, President Assad appears to be gaining the upper hand, with help from Russian arms and Hezbollah

The threat to world peace and prosperity posed by the civil war in Syria is impossible to exaggerate. For the shock-waves from the conflict between rival Muslim factions are spreading far beyond the country itself.