Many years ago, I had the privilege of supervising the expense accounts of the distinguished leader writers and columnists who adorned, and in some cases continue to adorn, these sacred spaces. It was, by and large, an easy job. As you would expect from thinkers steeped in Thatcherite doctrines of thrift and fiscal rigour, their claims were generally pitiful – second-class rail fares, potted shrimps, tiny jugs of house wine, the odd subscription to some unreadable journal of Middle Eastern affairs.

Every now and then there would be an economy drive, an attempt by management to cut further the meagre demands of my “cost centre” on the overall budget. I would be summoned for an audience with the glamorous managing editor, who was called Brenda. “Return to Brenda!” I would sing to myself, as I knocked on her office door.

“Boris,” she would begin, in her seductive South African tones, “what exactly is it that these people DO?” Well, I said, they were opinion-formers. They prowled the corridors of power. They sniffed the wind at Westminster and observed the movement of the animals at the watering-holes. They were the intellectual powerhouse of the paper, I said. They wrote the leaders that lit the sparks that rocked the boats that shook the very foundations of the government. They were the Myrmidons, the Imperial Guard, the crack troops of journalism… “Yes, yes,” Brenda said, and her eye skittered down a scrawled expense sheet until she found an offending item. “But why do they need to take so many taxis? Let’s say that they can’t take any more taxis, shall we?”