What is really going on in politics? Get our daily email briefing straight to your inbox Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

The most telling line in any interview is the thing they did not have to say.

"The allegations are false" is often to be expected. "The allegations are false and I am a legitimate businesswoman," on the other hand, just begs more questions. Why would anyone think that you aren't?

The unfolding origami of Boris Johnson's shenanigans with pole-dancing-model-and-waitress-turned-tech-entrepreneur Jennifer Arcuri will, in years to come, be used to train future generations of PR professionals about how not to defuse a scandal.

Usually, the advice is the same as that used by lawyers when their clients give evidence: do not say more than you have to.

Johnson has been following this rule religiously when asked about the allegations of handing public money to a woman he's suspected of having a fling with. But then, he's had lots of practice.

Arcuri's technique, on the other hand, is to throw out so much information her interrogators are spoilt for choice. It is akin to spraying the sea with enough blood to decorate the Treasury, and hoping it'll keep the sharks away.

Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now

While the Prime Mangler of the UK has been tight-lipped, Arcuri went under the radar for the best part of a fortnight then surfaced in Los Angeles, spraying quotes like an Extinction Rebellion firehose.

"I am, in fact, a legitimate businesswoman" was one of her first utterances, and it has been repeated with such frequency since that there's barely been time for hacks to locate a single other legitimate businesswoman who's ever felt the need to mention it.

She's been interviewed in a nail salon, with the salon's owner, a friend of Arcuri's, carefully named and promoted. She's been interviewed in a car park doing her shopping, the kind of approach which often catches people off-guard and unable to do much more than stutter.

When an alleged IRA suspect for the Birmingham pub bombings was confronted by a TV crew in a supermarket car park last year, he said: "I've got nothing to say." When the Mirror approached Arcuri as she loaded the car up, she expounded at some length, in words that must be asterisked for reasons of public decency, about how attractive she was, to the extent that men... well... tripped over things that should remain zipped out of harm's way.

(Image: Paul Clarke)

Answering questions about an alleged affair by claiming men "go insane around me" merely makes the rest of us wonder whether the Prime Minister ever lost his grip on reality. Stating "there is a very human side of my very complex relationship" makes readers wonder what the complexity is, exactly, if there was no hanky-panky.

And saying "there's nothing dodgy in those" about the grants of public money her companies received, only makes people wonder why the last two words were uttered.

Of course, she might just be doing a great job of marketing an upcoming kiss-and-tell, or a Hollywood biopic detailing her rise from working in a humble diner to working on statesmen with her humble brags.

But there are two greater issues here. Both of them far more important than when, how or if Johnson's johnson ever became a trip hazard.

The first is that, according to Arcuri, "he was like, 'Jen, what the f***'s a Google hangout? Where are you at 3pm, I can stop over. You can tell me what the hell is going on'."

A man who does not understand his own inbox has just told Parliament, the Republic of Ireland, and the entire European Union that he has come up with a technological solution that allows Northern Ireland to leave the customs union but remain in the single market, thereby resolving the unresolvable quandary at the heart of our political system and saving his political bacon.

Sorry to burst your bubble, Tories, but: my fat ass, he has.

(Image: Rowan Griffiths/Daily Mirror)

The second is the possibility that our legendary swordsman of a Prime Minister spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer pounds in an attempt to get a woman who is remarkably keen on discussing her own sexual attractiveness into bed, and FAILED.

Arcuri said rumours of an affair were "complete bulls***" and "absolute c**p".

Johnson has a successful track record at doing just one thing. It's his specialist subject on Mastermind. It's the only skill he has which most confounds and bemuses the rest of us. If reports are correct, he's even infected the dog with it.

But if, now, he can't get f***ed, that would mean we're stuck with him forever.

(Image: Paul Clarke)

Allegations, of course, are merely that. Four formal inquiries are underway to get to the truth of the matter. The PM says he acted with utmost propriety at all times, and the fact that he frequently turns out to have been doing the opposite of what he says is the salt with which all such statements must be seasoned.

But there are a couple of things about scandals that are worth noting.

You can survive one. You may survive two. But you cannot survive two that are connected. A throwaway line in Arcuri's interview claims "he told me about" what she called "the Brexit thing", and she went on to add: "I didn't try to, like, use Brexit to my benefit or anything."

Which is odd, because no-one had linked her to Brexit before she said that.

(Image: Paul Clarke)

The thing that matters most in a scandal is always the thing they did not have to do. An extra whisk of the egg, another cherry on the top, a second bite of the thing they had got away with nibbling once already.

It's getting a mate to give the bung to a hooker; it's brandishing the "trusty sword of truth" at a press conference; it's making your wife pose for a happy family picture after you've been caught boffing an actress in a Chelsea strip.

That's the thing that explodes, every time. And it is remarkable that this particular scandal is not being defused by all the denials, so much as primed to go thermonuclear.