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Matthew Norman on public servants serving the public:

[A] report by the ISC committee of peers and MPs into communication failures between West Yorkshire police and MI5 before the London bombings of 7 July 2005 has been abandoned “for legal reasons”, whatever they might be. The PM has read the document, which apparently implies that the bombings may have been avoidable, but prefers to keep it to himself, possibly for fear of distressing any poor police darlings already traumatised by a jury’s scepticism regarding the guilt of those charged with conspiring to blow up planes with bombs made from formula baby milk and contact lens cleaner.

I suppose a little while back there’d have been some outrage generated by all this. But these days who has the energy for anything more than a resigned shrug?

That’s the real triumph of New Labour – there’s so much of this stuff it’s difficult to to find the time to process it all. And being unable to process it, it becomes difficult to care. It’s institutionalised, indoctrinated apathy. This shower are out on their arses with extreme prejudice soon enough seems to be the view. It’s just that people are going to continue to be shafted in the meantime.

The replacing of Blairite arrogance and disdain with Brownite pathos and impotence has also served to confuse matters. For many I imagine there’s a guilty pause before putting the boot into Brown much like the pang before rubbing a naughty but wide-eyed puppy’s nose in it.

But then there’s also that contempt that only the truly pathetic can inspire, I suppose. Admit it, we hate him because he’s somehow lesser than us. Brown’s risen to the top but you still wouldn’t be seen dead in the company of such a loser. It’s that primal childhood/adolescent fear of having to hang out with the wrong, uncool, people. We still harbour delusions of greatness as a nation and yet look who we’ve got running the place.

Still, this is the rawest demonstration of the breakdown in the relationship between public servants and the public – that the government is too gutless – publicly at least – to get to the bottom of how and why 52 of its bosses were killed and uncounted others injured.

But then you have to think that, really, what would be the point of a proper investigation anyway? Do you really think that anyone would lose their job or their pension because they were half-arsed in pursuing the people who, if reports are to be believed, could have been stopped before detonating their rucksacks on 7/7? That’s not how things work in this country and you should know that by now. Ask Jean Charles de Menezes’s family.

So, where’s the outrage? It’s out trying to pay the gas and grocery bill. We’ve laboured under this Dirk Bogarde/James Fox-esque switcheroo for so long that we’re comfortable with it. There’s no way back now.