Oh come off it. This is starting to get silly. First it was the Royal family, then it was Gordon Brown and Sienna Miller. Now we are told that there are literally hundreds of people who have been bugged by the News of the World. It’s getting to the stage where it looks embarrassing for any self-respecting celebrity that they haven’t been taped or hacked or somehow illicitly probed by the gentlemen of the Screws. Across London, actors and slebs are ringing up their agents in a quivering fury.

“Never mind presenting the awards at the Caravan and Mobile Homes annual dinner – I want my name on that Scotland Yard list of victims, buster, or your ass is grass!” (slam!). Honest hard-working MPs, Cabinet ministers who have given years of service to this country, are secretly appalled and jealous that someone has taken the trouble to listen to the mobile phone messages of Chris Bryant MP — and yet no one is interested in them. Why not? they whimper privately to their wives. Is no one willing to hear my voicemail messages to my private secretary about not being able to find the government car service driver at Heathrow? Are they trying to tell me I am not worth bugging?