Brick walls break whilst willows bend.

So an advisor to Gordon Brown has had to go because he has sent naughty e-mail to a political blogger. A ministers husband was caught out watching porn on government expenses. People throughout the Westminster and Whitehall communities are "adapting" the rules to they own financial advantage. Bending the rules seems to be a popular pursuit, but only, it would seem, to achieve self aggrandisement. When the rules need to be bent a bit in order to help people then our employees in Westminster & Whitehall do not seem to be interested.
An example of this are the daft fishing quoter's that are imposed upon out fishermen. Now I do believe that some form of control is required in respect to the health and well being of our oceans, but they need to be sensible ones. We have got to get rid of stupid rules that mean that dead fish that, if landed, would put a boat "over quota" are dumped. Everything that is trawled from the sea and killed should be landed, recorded against that boat and used. Trying to keep things alive should be the prime objective but the methods used to take fish in general doesn't allow for such. We are not allowed to do this because of the rules - so bend them. Bend them in the same way that the Spanish do. In Spain virtually everything that comes out of the sea is eaten, and superb it is too.
There are many things in our society that with a little bit of flexibility applied in a sensible way could improve our lives while still maintaining the rule of law on which our society is based.