The real disgrace is a fit of bogus morality about Prescott

Rod Liddle say that — whatever his political failures — the Deputy Prime Minister is the victim of a deplorably hypocritical press assault

I spent Bank Holiday Monday trying to find out everything I could about Jo Knowsley, for your benefit. I didn’t find out very much. Certain questions, crucial to the public interest, remain unanswered — so I will have to speculate about them instead, a little later on in this article.

Jo was one of the plethora of journalists charged, last weekend, with investing weight and significance to the semi-literate diary scribblings of a certain Tracey Temple, the woman who frequently had sexual intercourse with John Prescott. Tracey told her story to the national newspapers, via the deeply moral conduit of Max Clifford, on a point of principle: it was only right that she should arrest the impression which had been painted of her in the press. That of a bit of a slapper.