The outrage over publication of confidential advice from UK Treasury officials to Gordon Brown, chancellor of the exchequer - about a £4bn-a-year tax increase imposed on pension funds in 1997 - says much about what is wrong with the way Britain is governed today.

Officials and politicians reacted with shock and horror and delaying tactics at the very idea of civil service advice, albeit 10 years old, being vouchsafed to the public. Who said Whitehall's culture of secrecy was dead?