Marcus Tullius Cicero, pictured above, was famous as a politician for his use of "spin." As Consul in 63BC he condemned fellow Roman citizens, suspected of being implicated in the "Cataline Conspiracy," to death by strangulation. In a speech afterwards he was unable to bring himself to admit what he had done and, rather than announce that the conspirators were dead, announced "They have lived." There has probably been no better example of a politician distancing himself from guilt in the last 2,000 years. Until yesterday, that is, when Liam Fox announced that ministerial rules "were found to have been breached." We asked what he meant; "Well, they had been found, that is discovered, to have been mysteriously broken for no apparent reason. One moment they were intact and the next they were found broken. It's tragic but no one in parliament, least of all me, is to blame. I blame the manufacturer who obviously foisted off an inferior product on us. Caveat Emptor and all that."
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