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Good morning. Remember Musical Chairs? One chair is removed, the music stops and everyone sits down except the one left standing who is suddenly exposed. I was reminded of the shame of real exposure when Sir Brian Langstaff delivered his long awaited report on the infected blood scandal. Alongside the harrowing stories of ruined lives, was the long, long cover-up. Doctors, researchers, civil servants, NHS officials, politicians and government ministers repeated untruths, refused to investigate, turned the other way. All to avoid being exposed, shamed, blamed. We can see all too clearly how some of our most prestigious national institutions protected themselves from exposure on the one hand while sacrificing the innocent on the other. Could it have been otherwise? The answer must be yes. In this country we have a respect for our institutions, which have often served us well. But we tend to forget that healthy institutions require individuals who have a conscience, an inner sense of right and wrong. For many of us that conscience is formed by faith: the Ten Commandments, the Dharma, the Tao, the Golden Rule. As we have drifted away from religion, as we have made morality personal and optional, we seem to have quenched the voice of conscience. Instead, we listen to the voice of authority. The elite who run our institutions too often put reputation management first. Think of Hillsborough, think of Grenfell, think of Horizon and the Post Office, think of the endless NHS cover-ups and denials. The elite control the lower orders and the lower orders obey. I remember being shocked when a senior Oxbridge figure once said to me ‘I hate whistle-blowers’, as though people asking questions were a kind of woodworm to be destroyed to stop the roof falling in. I have lived with institutions all my life. I narrowly avoided becoming a civil servant. I have been part of Oxbridge. I have worked for the Â鶹Éç. I am a minister in the Church of England. My instincts are to be loyal, but I have seen how loyalty can corrode conscience. You can get to the point of genuinely believing that the public good is best served by silence and denial. Yet without the voice of conscience the roof really does fall in and destroys those who sit beneath it. Wrong doing requires repentance, confession and a firm purpose of amendment. The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have tried to begin that process. But it is only a beginning. All of us, workers, patients, family members, consumers, voters, need to relearn the practice of examining our consciences, repenting of our secret sins and rediscovering what we were once called to be.