I know something is up, that Todd is planning one of his trademark policy coups, because my calls to his advisers are not being returned. My hunch is that they’ll want to announce whatever it is on Thursday morning, to set the agenda for one of the last Prime Minister’s questions before the looming election. Which means they’ll place it on Wednesday night in friendly newspapers – via the political hacks who take their dictation – to set the agenda for the Today programme the following morning. It will be a wheeze to woo the right-wing press, to reinforce Todd’s big claim that his party of the left won’t punish success and the successful. Or maybe Todd will wrap himself in the Union flag.

One Nation, that’s the conceit he wants to steal from the Tories, I mutter, as I glance left at the oncoming traffic, weigh the odds, and swerve right into Dean Street. It’s only when I am heading to the junction with Old Compton Street that I curse my risk assessment: I could have skidded under the wheels of the approaching Mondeo.

My obsession is blowing up all politicians’ best-laid plans, regardless of party or ideological allegiance; to nick the information first, interpret it in my own way and blitz it on the FC’s front page. My reward? The knowledge that when the FC first edition drops, my scoop will prompt night editors to ring up my rivals, pissed or asleep, to bollock them for missing the story. To earn this joyous Schadenfreude, I have to deploy shameless skills of persuasion, to persuade one of Johnny Todd’s colleagues that I know more than I do and that I’m doing him a favour by listening to him. It’s a spiel, but it usually gets me there.

I shoot across Old Compton Street, checking traffic in both directions. The revolving door of The Groucho Club is on my right. Even in the pissing rain, the vagrant who always asks for neither more nor less than 50p is in his spot next to the entrance with his right hand outstretched; no anorak, sodden in a fraying brown polyester jacket, flowery shirt and purple-stained flared trousers, new when Bolan was God. ‘Gimme 50p,’ he says. ‘Fifty pence for a cup of tea.’

I blank him as I slide the U-bend of the steel lock around the stanchion of a street sign and then guide it between the spokes of my front wheel and around the bike frame. I attach the top bar of the lock, turn the key, and give it a close inspection to make sure the bike is secure. I wiggle the top bar to check it really is set properly. Even when done, I panic that I haven’t locked it properly. So I wiggle it again. And again. And once more. Definitely done.

I walk to the door.

‘Gimme 50p.’