© Provided by The iThe Government has announced an inquiry into lobbying of ministers prior to the collapse of finance firm Greensill for which David Cameron acted as an adviser (Photo: Getty)
The cosy relationship between Greensill Capital and several members of the Government both past and present has become a full-blown scandal that has gripped all of Westminster.
The revelations earlier this week that the former senior mandarin Bill Crothers was working both for the civil service and Greensill has sent shockwaves through Whitehall and, inevitably, raised questions as to who else is serving two masters.
As Lord Pickles, the chairman of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments [Acoba], warned that the code of ethics does not even cover civil servants lower down the ladder. Of the 34,000 people who left the civil service in 2020, just 108 appointments were overseen by Acoba.
It suggests that the lobbying scandal is just the tip of a very big iceberg indeed. It has already prompted some MPs to compare it with the MP expenses scandal of 2009.
While it is still early days, the latest accusations of political sleaze could bring about reforms to guidance and rules on a similar scale to that seen back in 2009. But whether it will have the same cut through with the electorate remains to be seen.
There is no doubt the sight of the former Tory prime minister David Cameron swapping cosy messages with Chancellor Rishi Sunak will do little to dispel the "jobs for the boys" image that politics holds for much of the public. However, it is unlikely to resonate quite so much as Conservative MPs claiming taxpayers' cash to clean their moat or to buy a floating duck house.
The fact that much of this affair is likely to focus on civil servants, who will be unknown to the world outside SW1, means it is unlikely to register as highly on the public consciousness.
Whitehall has been rocked by several scandals in the last 30 years, most recently with the "Pestminster" sex scandal that shook Westminster in 2017.
That episode saw several high-profile resignations, not least the then defence secretary Sir Michael Fallon, Welsh secretary Stephen Crabb, and deputy prime minister Damian Green. But many would argue that not enough has changed in the culture of Westminster in the years hence.
This latest scandal chimes most closely with the 1994 "cash for questions" scandal involving Tory MPs Neil Hamilton and Tim Smith who were paid for asking parliamentary questions on behalf of Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed. That prompted John Major to commission the Nolan Committee to set out the ethics and principles that govern public life and are still in use today.
Should more evidence of the blurred lines between the civil service and private lobbying come to light, as they surely will, then a similar response will be needed if trust in the political system is to be salvaged.