Updates mainly on Murgatroyd tonight. Since I last wrote, the patient has had her staples removed and has gone up on the GRW website. Yesterday, it was confirmed that a permanent home offer is in progress for her, in a rural location in Monmouthshire where she will have ten acres and lots of cows to play with. It's likely we'll be handing her over the weekend after next. It is going to be the most incredible wrench since she is a beautiful and loving girl who has already claimed a place in our hearts. But I know it is the right thing to do, as it will allow us to foster other hounds who may need our help. I'm currently making up a small scrapbook for her new owners full of pictures of her and pieces of text to tell them all about her little ways. I attach some pictures. We had a photoshoot of her over the weekend in the garden and we also shot some video footage. I was going to edit it and put it up on the website but the home offers came in so quickly there is now no need.

I don't usually make many political comments on this blog. But the news has been so extraordinary over the past couple of weeks, it would seem odd not to. As the revelations keep coming out of Parliament, I keep thinking that I've heard the lot, then the next day something else turns up that takes your breath away. We are Telegraph readers anyway, but I must admit that each morning when I read it, I am now almost braced for some new low. What I find particularly interesting is that there are a small number of MPs who have emerged from this debacle with some shreds of honour and dignity intact, on both sides of the House. I wasn't especially surprised to find Frank Field and Ann Widdecombe in this group, as they both strike me as people who are in their different ways, conviction politicians - but I would love to know more about the others in this group. How did they resist what was clearly the overwhelming culture? What helped them to see it was wrong? How did they find the courage and the integrity to remain true to a bigger moral code? Especially in an area like this - they were faced with an environment where virtually all their colleagues were part of a conspiracy of silence to dive in and fill their boots. Answers and suggestions most welcome.

The other question of course is how long can this wretched Government thrash about in its death throes? It seems utterly extraordinary to think we may have to wait until next year for an election - I simply cannot see the current administration passing any new legislation with public confidence and heaven only knows what would happen if we needed to authorise the use of force. Can the Prime Minister really be so isolated from public opinion as to honestly believe he has the authority to do his job? The sad thing is that this has done terrible damage to the idea of parliamentary democracy - I take no pleasure in that, when so many people around the world have and continue to fight for the freedom to vote and politically organise. I am still sufficiently idealistic to regard that as an important hallmark of a just and fair society.