As I was staggering round Highbury Fields in a pair of shorts, I saw one I knew and hailed him crying, ‘Tom!’, because it was Tom Baldwin, the political reporter of the Times and arch-friend of Alastair Campbell. To my surprise, there was not a flicker on those Shelleyesque features. He continued his stride. ‘Tom!’ I shouted again. Had he somehow failed to recognise me, at a distance of a few feet? Could it be, even at 8 a.m., that he was under the influence of some stimulant? It was only when I started jumping up and down in front of him, sticking both thumbs up, way up, and shouting ‘Hey!’ that I suddenly understood. He was cutting me. I was being cut dead. Thus has the war of Gilligan’s scoop set hack against hack, brother against brother. There are some families, I understand, which are in a state of civil war between the partisans of the BBC, and those who are rooting for Alastair Campbell.
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