Gratifyingly, Media Corp’s share price tanked on the morning the story dropped. The shares were down more than 30 per cent by 10 a.m. But in the hours and days afterwards it crept gradually up again. As yet no bank has called in its loans and the statements from the authorities – the SFO, the SIB, the MMC – are all of the stalling variety: versions of ‘we don’t comment on possible or pending investigations’.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked Jess, after the share price had regained two-thirds of its losses, and there had still been no police raid on Media Corp’s offices.

‘Everyone’s waiting for the election. They want confirmation the Tories are out and that Breitner no longer has powerful allies in high office.’

She is probably right. And I don’t have a scintilla of doubt Todd will not only win, but win huge. I am so confident that on Sunday I bet two hundred pounds at fifty to one that the Tories won’t win a single seat in Scotland or Wales. Bye bye, Breitner.

*

On Monday night I was kicking myself for not wagering more. Because that’s when the Globe ran another story I know something about. At 10 p.m., while in The Groucho having a quiet drink with Jess, the FC night news editor rang me. I moved to the foyer. ‘Gilbert, sorry to trouble you, but I wanted to make you aware of the splash in the Globe.’

He read me the screaming headline: MY GAY DAYS WITH CHEATING CHANCELLOR. Fucking hell. Jeremy has coughed. And to Kevin Wilkinson. For which he too will win a fucking press award. I hope he chokes on it.

I rang Jeremy immediately. ‘Sorry I couldn’t tip you off,’ he said. ‘The paper swore me to secrecy. And they’ve squirreled me away to a lavish hotel in Hampshire, to protect me from the media storm.’

‘But . . .’ I was so shocked, I couldn’t get my thoughts in order at all. ‘What about your mum?’

‘Here’s the funny thing. I told you I was worried about what she would feel about me being gay, that she would be mortified. But she said she always knew.’ He laughed. ‘Quite a way to come out, really. But I’m glad.’

‘Why do it now?’

‘I couldn’t sleep knowing Kendall had got away with it. Don’t judge me, but I wanted to get my own back. For myself. But also for your sister.’

‘You know this will cost you your career in the Treasury?’

‘You’re probably right, although don’t forget I’m the victim.’

‘I’m afraid the mandarins won’t see it that way.’ Surely he knows that the British establishment way is not to make a fuss in public? If a Chancellor has misbehaved, better to deal with it discretely, out of the gaze of the hoi polloi. Even if Jeremy keeps his job, all routes to promotion would be blocked, for the duration.