The three politicians filmed secretly in this joint investigation between The Sunday Times and Dispatches have all made strenuous efforts to pull strings to stop our story being published in recent weeks.

The use of “spoiling tactics” to damage public interest journalism by politicians who have unique access to the levers of power was highlighted in this newspaper’s successful libel defence against the former Conservative MP Tim Yeo.

When weighing the balance between giving time for a pre-publication right to reply against the risk that this might allow a politician to scupper the impact of a story, Mr Justice Warby concluded: “The subject of the story has a strong incentive to engage in [spoiling] tactics of that kind, and so do competitors. The risks are