Yesterday Barack Obama had his annual health check and, in line with tradition, the results were published in full. So we learned that the president is in “excellent health” but should watch his cholesterol, that his triglycerides and lipoprotein levels are normal (whatever they are), and that he shows no evidence of colon cancer.

It’s one of the strange things about politics here – uncomfortably transparent in many ways, yet at the same time a murky gloom of influence and money. And even more strange is the way the two interact. Take this week on healthcare. Republicans are now so obstructive they’ve begun to oppose their own positions. Senator Grassley of Iowa last week furiously denounced the idea of an individual insurance mandate, calling it “unconstitutional”. Yet he’s on record proposing the idea in 1993, and endorsed it as recently as last year. What’s most remarkable is that he knows that we know he’s insincere. Yet he just doesn’t seem to care.

In the same way, information flows freely about lobbying dollars, yet hasn’t stopped their impact. US transparency laws mean that we know who the lobbyists are, and how much the big industries are spending. We even have records that show senators reading speeches directly from insurance companies’ briefing sheets. Yet, fully in the glare of those lights, the influence keeps flowing.

Of course transparency in these cases is a good thing, and probably helps to limit the worst excesses. But it does feel rather upside down sometimes – transparency becoming an end in itself, rather than a means to clean up politics.

That seems all too close to the approach Cameron’s taking in response to Ashcroft’s revelations. On Monday he claimed to be “delighted” with Ashcroft’s announcement, and by the fact that we can now “get on with the election”. In other words, the story ends, rather than begins, with transparency.

Let’s hope he doesn’t think that, and understands the substance of the issue. What matters most is that, rather than paying tax on his income in the UK, Ashcroft decided to buy the Tories the next election – and knowing that doesn’t make it any better.

Photo: Tsevis 2008. Hope over fear (Mosaic Illustration)