At the risk of alienating readers after a rollercoaster week, I wish to suggest that it is not impossible that Owen Paterson is actually telling the truth when he is claiming to have acted with integrity. It is also plausible that his colleagues are sincere when they describe him as a man of honour — as they did repeatedly in the debate on Wednesday. Indeed, I suspect that if Paterson were wired up to a perfectly accurate lie detector, it is likely that he would pass with flying colours while proclaiming that he was merely seeking to alert ministers to a health risk.
If you infer from this that I am a Tory stooge, let me also say that I also think it plausible that
