Hold it. That was my money.

There are many facets of the Damian McBride affair. I, however, was particularly struck by a line in the report in the Times: “McBride, who was paid a six-figure salary by the taxpayer . . . .” I thought “Hold it. That was my money that was paying this gent to dream up ways of further lowering the esteem in which Mr Cameron is held.”

And it is rather a lot of my money too. A six-figure sum would buy a lot of buns and cocoa of the very highest quality. Personally, I think that it is wrong to take my money to spend it on that sort of thing. Now I am sure that Mr McBride did a few other things as well. My money did not all go into this extremely dubious project. But I really wonder if any of the money spent on Mr McBride’s employment contributed to the public good in any way at all.

And my concern is that this is just the tip of the iceberg. How many more people are employed with tax-payer’s money to do things that will one day be seen to be disgraceful - or at the very least, a disgraceful misuse of that money?

Many people are horrified, and rightly so, at the “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour” aspect of this story.

But I believe that people really need to be horrified at the “Thou shalt not steal” aspect as well.