The X-rated Albanian model

MONDAY, APRIL 18

I GOT a call from Culture Secretary John Whittingdale’s adviser Carrie Symonds regarding a story about him having had a relationship with a prostitute. When I phone Whittingdale he says he didn’t realise he was going out with a prostitute who specialises in sado-masochism. I inform him The Mail on Sunday told me about his Russian girlfriends. He snaps: ‘My current girlfriend isn’t Russian, she’s Lithuanian.’ He goes tortuously through the story. The following weekend The Mail on Sunday has new allegations about him and a woman called Stephanie Hudson, a former soft porn actress.

They say he let her see confidential documents in his ministerial Red Box, texted her photos from Chequers, and was asked to leave the American Bar at the Savoy Hotel after ‘mutual drunken heavy petting’. When I go through it with him, he begins to bluster, saying she was a Page 3 model not a soft porn actress. He says he wasn’t thrown out of The Savoy but accepts a waiter did approach when she was kissing him after a customer complained. I had to smile: here was I, a senior figure in the Remain camp, spending most of my day defending a Minister in the Leave camp.

[Whittingdale’s name came up again after Michael Gove suggested Britain copy Albania’s relationship with the EU.]

When Caroline Preston, No10’s head of broadcast, hears us talking about the ‘Albanian model’ she jokes: ‘Oh no! Not another story about Whittingdale!’ I laugh about it all day.