The ideal of an organisation committed to exposing information that governments wish to keep secret has a romantic appeal to journalists like me. The reality of Wikileaks is, however, more squalid. Even when it came to public prominence in 2011, Wikileaks released cables from the US State Department that revealed the identity of dissidents in dictatorial regimes. The organisation’s representative in Russia was exposed as a Holocaust denier.

Speaking on Sunday at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, sponsored by The Times, Hillary Clinton briskly described Wikileaks as an arm of Russian intelligence. That is true yet still generous. As well as being a threat to western security, Wikileaks is a cabal of scoundrels, sexists and xenophobes.

As Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, Mrs Clinton knows