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In the wake of the weekend's revelations regarding the previous Health Secretary, there has been an ambivalence regarding whether to condemn his behaviour or to dismiss it on the grounds that a person's private life should not be the subject of prurient interest.

Perhaps that ambivalence is shared by the Christian churches who, in recent years, have said less and less about heterosexual misconduct which in turn might be because their source book for moral propriety, the Bible, is a bit of a Pandora's box on the issue.

I have no desire to outline the sexual behaviour of the Biblical greats apart from lighting on an incident in the life of David, King of Israel. He is renowned for having an extra-marital affair with a woman called Bathsheba. For all we know it may have been consensual. But it is the consequence of that coupling which is less commonly known.

To save himself from scandal, David sent Bathsheba's husband to the battlefield and certain death. God is not pleased and before long David finds himself in a conversation with the prophet Nathan who tells him what seems like an innocent tale of a miscarriage of justice. On hearing the simple story unfold David fills up with righteous indignation and condemns the person (causing injustice) at centre of the story. But Nathan turns to him and says, ‘You are that man!’.

David’s behaviour has already had negative consequences for Bathsheba's family. But his hypocrisy also risks weakening the bond between David as a leader and the people he governs.

As citizens, particularly during this prolonged period of national endangerment, we owe patience and understanding to those who were never elected to be administrators responding to a pandemic. No party has proven skills in this area. But the fair consequence is that those who lead us must always have an empathy, indeed a compassion for the citizens whose freedoms to relate, to move, to behave normally are constrained by laws or strictures.

The experience of David is not an isolated incident in biblical or national history where a lapse in public responsibility has been associated with ambivalence in personal morality. When that happens, none of us can expect ourselves to be trusted guardians of high social principles if we transgress the standards we uphold.

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