  This ambiguity about the extent of the need for dirty hands is reflected in much of the literature on the topic. Numerous writers have followed early Walzer (and some elements in both Machiavelli’s and Weber’s treatment of political morality) in regarding politics as a zone in which, to quote Neil Levy, “dirty actions are part and parcel of ordinary political life”. Levy adds: “Politicians must make deals, compromise with interests they abhor, distribute favours and neglect relationships” (Levy 2007, 52–3, endnote 26). A number of these things are no doubt regrettable or distasteful in varying degrees, but whether they are immoral depends on what the deals are, what the favours involve, how deep the compromise runs, and how damaging the neglect is (and to what sort of relationship). Much of what various writers regard as the need for dirty hands in politics is dubiously an issue of immorality at all. In order to maintain power and get important work done, a politician may have to appoint a member of a party in coalition with his own to an important Ministry ahead of a trusted colleague in his own party who has better credentials for the job. This is disappointing and painful to him and his colleague and clearly less than ideal (even though the appointee is, we may suppose, competent enough) but I do not think the act can be seen as immoral. To call it morally disagreeable is to signal the fact that certain valuable relations and ends are put under strain by it, but it is clearly not is the same league as torture, murder, or gross deceit.