IT is the easiest thing in the world to bash politicians. Journalists like myself, suckers for the simple life, can't help but indulge ourselves. But I am an abashed basher.

Although quick to sneer, I know that politicians are the ones who have swapped the security of normal life for the aggravation of public life. They spend their nights not in front of fire and telly, but walking the rainswept streets canvassing votes, or in draughty committee rooms hammering out policy. Not for them the cosy certainties of a grumble down the pub; instead, they are actively trying to change things.

Carping from the sidelines, I sometimes feel like Alan Hansen criticising football managers on Match Of The Day. The same accusation could be levelled at us both: hey buddy, if you're so smart, why don't you try it?

More than once, it has crossed my mind to stand for election to the council as an independent. However, two things put me off. My job as a journalist does not sit happily with running for any sort of public office. You cannot objectively examine council policy once you have published your own manifesto. Melanie Phillips, the Daily Mail columnist, put it this way: "I think journalists should not join things. They should not belong."

The second reason is more dispiriting: a dearth of inspirational role models.

Too many politicians seem timid slaves to the party machine, or faceless bureaucrats or self-glorifying show-offs. So my list of political mentors was always short. But now I find it contracting at a scary rate.

Mo Mowlam was someone I held in high regard until I interviewed her and found her to be brusque, superior and generally devoid of insight or warmth.

And this week, Clare Short's name has been crossed off my little list.

Ms Short's admirable determination to stick to her principles became a quality so rare as to be precious in the age of New Labour. Indeed, she railed against the spin doctors as "dark forces".

Her declaration that she will resign if the Government attacks Iraq without specific UN backing looks like a typically courageous act of principle.

But it's not. Consider what actually happened. Clare Short spurned the chance to express her objections in a democratic way, by backing the Labour rebels' amendment in the Commons. She did not come clean with the Prime Minister at their meeting last Thursday.

Three days later Ms Short contacted the Radio Four programme the Westminster Hour to say she was available for interview. Only after recording her deeply damaging attack on Tony Blair did she inform Downing Street.

As somebody who is vehemently against this war, I should be standing to applaud Clare Short today. I would have done just that if she had quit, after informing the Prime Minister and voting with the rebels.

Instead, I find her actions faintly nauseating. Her actions do not smack of a minister bravely standing up for what she believes. Instead, Ms Short manipulated the media to promote her carefully crafted image as Labour's principle - and principled - maverick.

She is as much a spinner as the rest. This comes as no surprise, unhappily. I once spent a few hours in her company and that of a Sunday Telegraph journalist; she schmoozed the Fleet Street writer and barely tolerated the provincial hack.

And so another political role model is scratched off the page. But it's not all bad news. At least local politics will be spared my presence for some time to come.

Updated: 10:40 Wednesday, March 12, 2003