In Norfolk, a Conservative candidate called Liz Truss faces deselection because she had an affair with a married MP. In Westminster, wives have been told they can no longer work for their husbands (or husbands, obviously, for wives). If wives and husbands are ejected from the Commons, there will be more Liz Trusses because extramarital sex and politics go together like Gordon Brown and indecision.

Tories still blanch at the memory of David Mellor, Chelsea football strips and other sexual shenanigans from the 1990s. Voters are more understanding. John Major’s reputation survived — and was rather enhanced by — his affair with Edwina Currie. The people of Bolsover still send Dennis Skinner to parliament despite his canoodling with a secretary. If only Disraeli were on hand to advise Norfolk’s Conservatives. He was once asked whether the latest affair of Palmerston, the Liberal leader, should be exposed. Dizzy was horrified at the thought. “If this gets out,” he warned, “the old man will win in a landslide.”