IN hindsight, the appointment of Jimmy Savile to head a reforming task force at Broadmoor hospital is grotesque but I’m afraid that his secondment is a sign of a deeper malaise corrupting society in every walk of life.

I refer to the cult of elitism, which has returned with a vengeance following a brief period of meritocracy in the immediate pre-war years.

The situation has become so ridiculous that London City University has just appointed businesswoman Julia Hobsbawm as its first visiting Professor of Networking.

You really couldn’t make it up – it’s not what you know, but who you know.

However, her appointment merely confirms the unhealthy fact that we are governed and controlled by a rich and powerful elite regardless of their ability.

In keeping with their sense of entitlement and pomposity this elite assumes wealth and celebrity conflates with ability and probity, a misguided assumption.

Thus we have nasty pieces of work like Jimmy Savile having influence at government level.

This wealthy elite plays a form of musical chairs for top jobs, regardless of ability The rest of us plebs have to make progress through yearly appraisals and job applications the length of the Dead Sea scrolls.

VJ Connor, Bishop Auckland.