Red-Handed fat cat © Matt Buck Hack Cartoons

This is just one of the chores which has to be done and although there is some heavy duty talk about the deployment of Toilet Duck going on in the financial and political worlds, it’s useful to watch who is doing the actual cleaning. This is something I might look at in one of my drawings this week.

In the UK, Conservative party leader David Cameron has apologised for his party’s part in the ’cosy economic consensus’ about the behaviour of the financial industry in the past decade. This was a smart political move because apologies cost little, if you are not PM, and it makes the prime minister and former chancellor look even more tin-eared and stubborn than he is. Both sides of the great UK party political divide have reaction to it which is available here and here.

Politically, it also pays to remember the national budget is not far away. This is very important to the government as it will be one of their last chances to throw cash at the electorate before they have to have an election. Even if Labour can’t win, they can, perhaps, reduce the scale of any defeat.

In the US, some rather brilliant cleaning fluids have been applied by Jon Stewart and the team on the Daily Show in a a series of recent clips which demonstrate what journalism can and should be. I can’t recommend the half hour of your life you should spend watching the recent set of interviews with CNBC Business Analyst Jim Cramer too highly. And the FT’s Alphaville agrees.