The problem, however, is real. In one sense, as I have been suggesting, we are all in some degree professional and this professionalism is central to our moral identity. On the other hand, however, integrity is under attack from the idea that doing our duty is something that ought to be encouraged by a system of rewards and recognitions. It is called a "bonus culture". Here, then, is our new situation, in which it is widely believed that we live not in terms of self-limiting integrity, but within a structure of rules and controls and the smart thing is to push those rules as far as we can in order to benefit from them. How did this situation come about?

The basic relevant change over recent generations is clear. Professionals have increasingly become employees, generally employed by the state. To be a doctor often means less these days to exercise professional discretion than to be bound to follow guidelines issued by the government of the day concerning every subject of interest, ranging from what might be prescribed to the times when services must be available to the public. GPs who used to be entirely self-regulating are currently regulated in terms of something called the "Quality and Outcomes Framework". The hours to be worked by doctors in hospitals are being regulated by the European Union in Brussels. Recruitment procedures for registrars and consultants are closely dictated by the state and it has been reported that many doctors are either emigrating to avoid this bureaucracy or are taking early retirement.

This move from professional to employed status means that professionals find themselves judged not in terms of their own professional integrity but of assessment by their clients or customers. The change responds, of course, to the fact that folly and error cannot be entirely avoided in human affairs and it may be dealt with in one of two ways. One is by self-regulation, which is still part of most professional organisations. The other is in terms of legally enforced regulation, based upon the principle that society must learn the lesson of bad things happening and procedures set in place to make sure that this or that (from careless anaesthesia to the homicidal amusements of Dr Harold Shipman) "can never happen again".

The teaching profession is a dramatic example of how an activity recently arrived at professional status has been rapidly reduced to a kind of helpless instrumentality. A national curriculum now prescribes in detail both what shall be taught and how it will be taught. Whenever the government begins to recognise something as a "social problem", luckless teachers are pressed into service to improve the minds of their charges, new responsibilities demanding the promotion of social cohesion and racial awareness, instruction about healthy food and the avoidance of obesity and correct attitudes to varying "sexual orientations". Many other types of professional have similarly been conscripted by the state. Accountants and lawyers are subject to criminal penalties if they do not report what might be money-laundering or tax-evading operations. The state has a long arm and it now stretches into every factory, office and household in the land.

What are the consequences of this move from professionalism to employment? The basic point is that the inner motivation of professional integrity becomes gradually modified by the rules and instructions coming from an employer. The change in conduct no doubt happens almost insensibly over time and it varies greatly according to the individual character of those involved; it also varies from activity to activity. It's true that no external employer has been involved in the decline of the House of Commons, but its responsibility for the conduct of affairs has been notably diminished by the movement of many competences to Brussels. The serious responsibilities of parliament in earlier times clarified and sharpen the sense of public responsibility.