With Washington influence peddler Nathan Landow confirming he was indeed party to a $300,000 campaign contribution to the One Bermuda Alliance in the run-up to the Island’s 2012 General Election, the long-simmering Jetgate scandal has been brought to a rolling boil.

In principle Premier Craig Cannonier now has no option but to resign.

Whether by omission or commission, it is now clear he misled Parliament when he provided a personal explanation about the unsavoury matter last May.

For a year now, as further details of the initially sketchy affair have sporadically emerged, the Premier has done nothing to correct his initial account.

Jetting up to Washington with fellow OBA nabobs to schmooze with a particularly unpleasant example of that city’s inside-the-Beltway operators was, at best, an incredibly reckless decision, one bound to have all manner of both predictable and unanticipated consequences.

To have accepted a campaign contribution from a consortium he was involved with, even through a once-removed cut out like the OBA’s political action committee, while not illegal under the anaemic laws governing political finances in Bermuda, was unwise to the point of outright stupidity.

It is all but impossible to avoid the perception of a cash-for-favours deal involving casino magnate Landow, particularly in light of the OBA’s abrupt post-election decision to scrap a promised gaming referendum in favour of a simple parliamentary vote on the contentious subject.

At this late stage it doesn’t matter if any such quid pro quo actually existed. In politics, far more so than in other areas of life, perception is reality, the truth entirely negotiable.

Under the Westminster political system, what is euphemistically termed “misleading parliament” is usually considered a capital offence for those holding Cabinet-level positions.

British War Minister John Profumo famously resigned from office in 1963 not because he had potentially compromised Cold War national security secrets by sharing a mistress with the Soviet military attaché to the UK but because he initially lied to the House of Commons about his bizarre liaison.

So Mr Cannonier should even now be drafting his resignation letter.

However, under the Bermudian variation of the Westminster system there seem to be distressingly regular exceptions to even the most long-established and ostensibly iron-clad rules.

That will almost certainly be the case here. It seems entirely likely Mr Cannonier and his loyalists will circle the wagons and simply attempt to brazen out the repercussions of this whole seedy business.

Never mind that a year-long, slow-motion train wreck of inconsistencies and incoherence on the part of the Premier and senior OBA officials continued into this week, with party chairman Thad Hollis as late as Wednesday denying the existence of any contribution emanating from Nathan Landow and his associates.

More’s the pity if Mr Cannonier opts to avoid doing the honourable thing.

Even if the Jetgate business was the result of an innocent if epically boneheaded misstep on the part of a political neophyte, the electorate was told it could expect better from the OBA following on from the serial scandals of the last Government.

“We believe good governance is more than just lip service,” the party stated in its 2013 election platform. “It starts at the top. It sets the highest standards and doesn’t accept excuses. The OBA was founded on values that work for people, and it is these values that guide our approach to governing.” And under a section on “Accountability” in the party campaign literature, you will also find: “We will implement a zero-tolerance policy for unethical behaviour …”

Spare a thought for John Barritt, who oversaw the merger of the United Bermuda Party and the Bermuda Democratic Alliance and whose own uncompromising commitment to honesty, integrity and transparency infuse its founding principles.

He lost his father this week, former longtime Speaker of the House of Assembly F. John Barritt who himself embodied decency and fair-mindedness in an arena where both are all too frequently conspicuous by their absence.

Now he must also look on at the full extent of a self-inflicted wound the OBA has administered to its core values, one which may yet prove mortal to both its credibility and its re-election prospects.

Mr Barritt must be viewing this week’s developments with dismay, disappointment and not a little anger, particularly given he stepped down from his own Parliamentary seat to fast-track Mr Cannonier’s political career (and was then inexplicably overlooked when the OBA Government announced its Senate appointments).

One of the OBA’s founding fathers as well as its first leader, Mr Barritt would likely tell you his successor should indeed resign on principle. But as is the case with so many other Bermudians disillusioned with our degraded political process, he’d also likely tell you that principle now seems to be as entirely dispensable as a used paper cup in the Island’s corridors of power.