POLITICS is a rough trade but politicians are human like the rest of us – cut them and they bleed.

Philip Dunne would not be human if he did not feel disappointment and perhaps hurt after being sacked having given service in two of the worst administrations since the second world war.

The latest foul up being to give billions of pounds worth of public sector contracts to Carillion ignoring a catalogue of profit warnings.

Back to Mr Dunne, who in the end paid the price for being an upper class, Eton-educated white male of a certain age at a time when Theresa May wanted to apply a cosmetic fresher look to her ailing Government.

No one can be held responsible for the circumstances of their birth and the irony is that Mr Dunne can be argued to have been the victim of a cruel cocktail of ageism, inverted sexism and snobbery.

Mr Dunne was taken into Government by David Cameron who took over following the global financial crisis and proceeded to make a difficult situation worse with an ill-considered and ideologically driven policy of austerity.

This has resulted in a ravaging of public services and a rapid growth of the so-called gig economy characterised by often poorly paid and insecure employment.

It has delivered the bedroom tax and a broken society.

We were told this was a price to be paid for paying down the deficit by 2015 – a deficit that it is now clear will be with us for many more years.

But most condemning of all, Mr Cameron will go down in infamy by putting self and party before country in an ill-considered bid to get the ‘fruitcakes and loonies and closest racists’ off his back– his words not mine.

Unless there is an unlikely reversal, the price of the reckless EU Referendum will be paid for years, probably generations.

Mr Dunne, who campaigned strongly to Remain, stayed loyal even as his party embarked upon a strategy of beating UKIP by becoming UKIP.

He took on the role of Health Minister surely knowing that this would be problematic in Ludlow with health issues so high on the agenda..

Mr Dunne leaves the NHS in crisis with patients dying in corridors. This is, of course, not all down to Mr Dunne but history will record it happened on his watch.

No longer shackled to the corpse of a failing Government, a highly regarded good local MP is liberated to fight for his patch. The loss of his Government job may be a cause for congratulations not commiserations.