I cannot begin to theorise what may have caused such a catastrophic malfunction

So, a free, jetlagged afternoon by the pool in Palo Alto, after this experience. What to do? Obviously, hack on some code. I dragged out the lobby analyzer project and got it to actually spit out ministers, lobbyists, and MPs, with their weighted degrees in the network, onto the command line. The conclusions are dreadful and confirm all my preliminary work. We are being ruled by Francis Maude and David Willetts. They both have significantly higher scores than the Prime Minister, with Willetts topping the poll. Of course, this is using the idea the wrong way up, but presumably the lobbyists' choice of who to lobby contains information about their perception of ministerial importance and influence.