Why don't you trust us, Tony?

I think my brain's going to explode. I've been trying to understand what's been going on at the Department of Transport. It's about as easy as trying to follow the plot of an obscure opera. Lies, treachery, vengeance, ambition, cruelty - it's all there. Martin Sixsmith resigned. Martin Sixsmith didn't resign. Jo Moore planned to use Princess Margaret's funeral to bury bad news. No, she didn't; it just looked as if she had, because Sixsmith sent her an email telling her not to.

Stephen Byers lied about the existence of this email. No, he didn't, he told the truth about the email, it's just that it wasn't the same email. Godric Smith, the PM's Spokesperson, told the press that the email didn't exist. Or maybe he didn't. Sir Richard Mottram, Permanent Secretary at the Department of Transport, promised Sixsmith he wouldn't have to resign, just hours before Sixsmith heard his own resignation being announced on the radio. Mottram must have been overruled by Byers, then. No, that can't be right either, because Mottram later blamed a "low-grade twerp" for releasing the news.

And so it goes on, Smith and Sixsmith, Moore and Mottram, these characters moving through my mind in a miasma of confusion, until suddenly I have the single, blinding, shrieking insight: I DON'T CARE! I don't care who said what to whom and when. I don't care who sent whom an email and who didn't. I don't even care who lied and who told the truth, because New Labour's spin machine has so eroded the difference between truth and falsehood that both are now mere tools in the hands of cynical manipulators who no longer understand that governing is about more than merely staying in power.

It's significant that all this has been going on in the department that stands as a glorious symbol of New Labour's failures. Five years after first coming to power, the Blair government has not even begun to figure out how to provide the country with a sane and civilised transport system. Fearful of making spending commitments, fearful of considering radical change, fearful of taking on any vested interest, they seek not new and daring solutions, but new and better presentation. And the problem is, it isn't working any more. The greatest spin machine the world has ever known is now out of control, and threatens to consume the party it was designed to protect.

As I was pondering all this yesterday lunchtime, I took a break from reading the Sundays, switched on the Food Programme on Radio 4, and found myself listening to a simple tale that turned out to be more revealing than anything in that day's papers. The distinguished chef Gordon Ramsay was apparently asked by Downing Street to prepare a meal for Tony Blair and his friend Vladimir Putin (Tony is friends with everyone). Ramsay put foie gras on the menu, but received a call from Downing Street asking for it to be removed. As most people know, foie gras is traditionallyproduced by forcefeedinga process that presumablycauses the poor goose considerable distress. Sadly, the reason for the changed menu was nothing to do with goose-compassion. As a spokesperson explained to Ramsay, Downing Street was afraid that protestors might get hold of the story and so make the Prime Minister appear indifferent to animal welfare. So the foie gras was removed from the menu, though curiously, not the caviar, an exclusive variety costing £1,500 a kilo.

This apparently trivial event reveals a great deal about the spiritual state of New Labour. First, everything was conceived of in terms of image. Not content, not principle, not policy, not passion, not commitment, not ethics, just image. Secondly, it didn't work, because we learned that the taste buds of the Butcher of Chechnya were expensively titillated by the roe of the sturgeon, now classified as a threatened species. And let's face it, contributing to the extinction of a species is infinitely worse for one's image than contributing to the liver pains of an overfed goose.

If this much effort goes into protecting Blair from geeselovers, imagine the effort that goes into protecting him from accusations of sleaze. The tragedy is that Blair first struck most of us as a decent man - which is obviously what he believes himself still to be. But by concealing truth behind clouds of spin, he is asking us to trust him while showing no desire to trust us. No story has been spun more frantically than the on-going story of the party's relationship to big business. Desperate to deny its past, New Labour simpers to the rich and powerful with the avidity of a tart at a millionaire's tea-party.

To distract us from this uneasy spectacle, the spin machine goes into integrity overdrive, assuring us that taking large sums of money from pushy entrepreneurs has no effect on government decisions. Well, I'm sorry, when the rich guy pays out, he generally expects the girl to oblige. And whatever Tony Blair says to the contrary, it looks to me as if New Labour obliges in every possible way. Think of it this way: if a millionaire whom you scarcely knew slipped you a few hundred grand late one night would you assume that he might conceivably want something in return? No? Congratulations. You have what it takes to be Leader of the Labour Party.

Alistair Beaton is the author of Feelgood, winner of the Evening Standard award for Best New Comedy.