SO that’s sorted then. In case anyone was in any doubt, it’s essentially fine for a minister to pester the Law Officers to drop a prosecution against someone who has donated to his campaign costs for decades, and then to plead with the Royal Court to go easy when it comes to sentencing.

And if this campaign contributor – not ‘friend’, dear me no – happens to have been caught breaking the law that the politician is meant to enforce as a minister, that’s not a big deal either.

These things are good to know.

And it’s probably good to know too that ‘essentially fine’ means that the rules were broken, but that it doesn’t really matter – that the whole thing can be dealt with by a little ‘training and education’. Try that one out next time you get a parking fine.

Exactly what kind of ‘training and education’ Chief Minister Terry Le Sueur has in mind for his erstwhile Housing Minister Terry Le Main was left tantalisingly hanging in the report, released last week, into the whole sordid mess.

Pointing out that the code of conduct exists might be a start. Or perhaps a slide show of some kind, or maybe using glove puppets to represent the distinction between the executive and judicial branches of government.

Or possibly just sitting down in a little room while someone reads the ministerial code of conduct out loud. Very … slowly.’

• Read the full column in Tuesday’s Jersey Evening Post