One phrase has been whispering away at the back of this column’s cerebral cortex of late: “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” — who guards the guards.

And over the last few weeks, the murmurings have been getting louder and louder.

We have cops investigating cops over cases of malfeasance, corruption and cover-up; the army examining allegations of torture, abuse and murder committed by its own troops and the Establishment looking into claims of historical child abuse by, you guessed it, senior members of the Establishment.

And surprise, surprise, the outcome of these forensic navel-gazing exercises tends to be: “Nothing to see here, move along.”

Even when the evidence is so glaringly blatant it can’t be ignored or brushed under the carpet the response tends to be as watered down as a homeopathic cold remedy, with the active ingredient, in this case truth, being approximately one part per million.

This is of course not a new thing. A cursory glance over the conviction rates for police officers relating to deaths in custody tells a damning story of a force giving itself a clean bill of health even while attempting to wash the blood from its hands.

To the extent of totally ignoring any such triflingly inconvenient matters such as blatant evidence to the contrary.

Hillsborough, Orgreave, the deaths of scores of predominantly young black men as a result of violent restraint in the back of police vans or squalid holding cells. And they are just some of the ones we know about.

Just another day at the office if we were to believe the constabulary and absolutely nothing would have been done about it if not for the indefatigable campaigning of victims’ relatives and supporters.

As with any such institution the immediate response to any form of potentially negative publicity is to deny everything and go into total lockdown. Then, as in the case of Hillsborough and Orgreave swiftly seek to smear the victims and pass the blame onto them.

And then of course there is the military, who historically have been ten times worse but who usually get away with it because when they murder and torture people it is usually on the other side of the world, or at least the other side of the Irish Sea and therefore it doesn’t count.

Harsh?

It certainly is, but that is exactly how the top brass and the government have always behaved and as recent events have shown continue to do so.

To give just one example, the MoD was recently forced to apologise over a particularly disgusting incident dating back to the invasion of Iraq which saw an Iraqi teenager drown after being forced into a river by British troops despite not being able to swim.

Now, in most right-thinking people’s minds that would at the very least constitute manslaughter.

But that’s not how it works with the MoD. The very same week the government announced plans to prevent victims of abuses by British forces from bringing “malicious” claims for compensation which it suggested were being brought on an “industrial scale.”

Hmmm. Now I may be being dense here but perhaps if they stopped killing and torturing people on an “industrial scale” they wouldn’t have this problem in the first place.

But that of course is not going to happen.

Instead it has been announced that the solution to this thorny issue is to exempt troops from having to adhere to the European Convention on Human Rights which is apparently preventing them from getting on with the important business of slaughtering civilians.

But why am I bringing all this up now, you may well be wondering.

The reason being that of course it is not just the army and cops who, ahem, “police themselves” in such dubious fashion.

MPs and the media are also past masters of the art of self-regulation and this week saw two particularly egregious examples to illustrate the point.

The first example saw Kevin Barron MP get his knuckles rapped for breaching the parliamentary code of conduct by accepting payment for hosting events for a drug company in Parliament.

Now this is such a frequent occurrence these days that it would barely merit mention.

Except, that is, that Barron just happens to be chairman of the Commons standards committee.

Oops!

Barron, who apparently gave the money to charity, correctly rescued himself and referred himself to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner.

Following the investigation the committee recommended that no further action was required following the “minor” and “inadvertent” breach.

The panel then raised concerns about the “multiplicity of rules” set by different bodies within the Commons and the “vagueness” of the wording in mitigation.

Hang on a minute. He is the head of the Commons standards committee. If he doesn’t know the rules, who does? And if he doesn’t then he probably shouldn’t be in the job.

But moving on from the vaguely amusing to the downright outrageous.

Yes that’s right it can only be the odious Scum columnist Kelvin MacKenzie who on Wednesday was cleared by the Independent Press Standards Organisation of religious discrimination after he attacked Channel 4 for screening a female reporter wearing a hijab while covering the Nice terror attacks.

This is an intriguing ruling, not to mention somewhat mind-boggling as religious and racial discrimination is basically MacKenzie’s sole reason for existence.

The Scum hack defended his “reasonable” criticism of Channel 4 News, arguing that the hijab was a “religious statement” and questioning whether a Christian would be able to wear a cross prominently in a TV news broadcast.

Yes and I’m sure that was your primary concern and motivation Kelvin.

A free press is essential to what laughably passes for democracy in this country but, as the old adage accurately notes, with freedom comes responsibility.

There is nothing even vaguely responsible about MacKenzie or the rag he scribbles for.