The Ministerial Code of Conduct: A Crikey/Kipling proposal.

1. Keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you.

2. Trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too.

3. Wait and don’t be tired by waiting.

4. Being lied about, don’t deal in lies.

5. Being hated, don’t give way to hating.

6. Don’t look too good, nor talk too wise.

7. Dream, but don’t make dreams your master.

8. Think, but don’t make thoughts your aim.

9. Meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same.

10. Bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools.

11. Watch the things you gave your life to broken then stoop to build ’em up with worn-out tools.

12. Talk with crowds and keep your virtue.

13. Walk with kings but keep the common touch.

14. Fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run.

15. Don’t eat your ear wax.