The Independent reports that the chief executive of the Stafford hospital was given a 45,000 pound pay raise “while the hospital was being investigated.”

While I don’t think it applies in every case, one way to understand some of these “bonuses” paid to failures is as hush money. It’s easier to fire a well-meaning, but inept manager than it is to fire a scoundrel. The former can simply be confronted with the facts and will leave. But the latter will have always known the facts and have hoarded them against the day when he can use them as protection. And they rise and rise in the system, because they’ve got the goods on somebody. Who was it who said that in certain corrupt cultures, no good deed goes unpunished?