behaviour has fallen below the standards expected of senior public officials.

In the first case, after the Planning Department had ordered work to cease, Environment Minister Arthur Hodgson personally gave permission for construction to continue at a home owned by a Cabinet colleague and being built by a backbench Government MP.

In the second case, Telecommunications Minister Renee Webb was stopped for speeding at allegedly more than 70 kph and was given a ticket. But the ticket was later replaced with a caution.

Mr. Hodgson later said that there had been some confusion over the stop order placed against Transport Minister Dr. Ewart Brown's house, which was being built by St. David's South MP Arthur Pitcher.

Mr. Hodgson said it was his understanding that some work was still allowed to continue by the Planning Department. But the wording of the letter on the Planning Department file clearly stated that work was to cease until new drawings were approved.

Mr. Hodgson may have been within his rights in allowing work to continue, but he would have done well to remember that public officials, especially elected officials, must be purer than Caesar's wife.

With three Government politicians involved in this case, Mr. Hodgson should have taken enormous care to ensure that there was no suggestion of political favouritism. He did not, and fairly or unfairly, some mud will stick.

Ms Webb is in a similar situation, except her defiant responses to a reporter's reasonable enquiries made a bad situation worse.

First she said it was nobody's business. Then she said the real fault lay with the Police, whom she alleged had leaked the fact she had been charged with speeding to the media. Finally, she said: "Joe Bloggs gets warned all the time.'' But Joe Bloggs does not get warned all the time, at least not for speeding at 70 kph, as Ms Webb is alleged to have done and not when, as Ms Webb admits, it is a second offence. Joe Bloggs goes to court and always is at least fined.

Ms Webb apparently, is not Joe Bloggs -- but politicians should be treated the same as anyone else before the courts if the justice system is to get the respect it has to have to function.

Commissioner of Police Jean-Jacques Lemay also needs to answer why he notified Ms Webb that the media was asking about the ticket and what the "procedural irregularities'' were that resulted in it being torn up and replaced with a caution.

If it turns out that the decision to turn the ticket into a caution came about as a result of this alleged leak, then a spectacular mistake has been made. If Ms Webb had gone to court, it would have resulted in a minor story which would have had the bonus of demonstrating that we are all equal before the law.

Instead it has become a minor scandal.

Neither of these incidents are Watergate by a long shot. But these kinds of incidents, along with public irritation over Government travel and over-sized cars, add up to political death by a thousand cuts. And that is something no Government can afford.