The Slough of Despond @ No 10

As if things could not get worse - they plummeted yesterday. Boy David sank from the Stew of Disgust to the Slough of Despond in one fell swoop.

How so, do I hear you ask? Well, it was quite an easy slippage really. You see even before our Boy David was made PM, he was being warned about the distasteful company that he kept. Obviously, the company was not distasteful to Boy David, otherwise he would not have kept up with it. But the company was more than distasteful to observers and others who were, and still are, close to him.

The company in question are the select group of 'friends' who live near his Oxfordshire constituency home. They are a very select group, they are the cognoscenti of News International - you don't get much more cognoscent than that!

Such people are, however, dangerous. They discover facts about you, your life, your family - in fact, after a while, it is difficult to detach yourself from such 'friends'. Also, you can never be certain that you actually know such friends, like Janus, their heads face in two directions! 'Yes' may mean 'No' and 'No' may means 'Yes'. They can't help it, you understand, they work for News International.

News International and its papers, 'The Sun' and 'News of the World' are now falling lower and lower in public opinion. In fact, they can't sink much lower. The idea that their reporters obtained stories via phone hacking and by paying the police was roundly denied - at first. Then, there was a tentative acceptance that - perhaps we did pay the police for certain information. This became - well, we did do it but strictly within the legal framework. Some slippage there! The Stew of Disgust is growing thicker and stickier.

As to the phone hacking - after the scandal of the royal hacking and the celebrity hacking, came the political hacking! The public were surprised but not unduly affronted. Then came the news of the Milly Dowler phone hacking - then the phone hacking of the families of the little Soham girls - then of the families of the victims of 7/7 bombings. Finally, came the news that the phones of families of servicemen killed in Afghanistan had been hacked into by person or persons unknown but linked to a certain tabloid newspaper.

And - as if all this was not bad enough - this comes at a time when the supposedly cultured Culture Secretary is to make his decision on the News International bid to take over BSkyB.

Boy David was in Afghanistan when the full enormity of this affair broke. He landed back in the UK to have his ears deafened by the din surrounding it. At PMQs, he took up an aggressive pro-active stance declaring how appalled he was by what had taken place. But he did not desert his selected friends! Oh No! Boy David is nothing, if not loyal.

Worse was to come! This morning, Arturo scampered over from No 11 to see me.

"Guess what?" He asked, whiskers bristling.

"What?"

"Georgy has had his phone hacked! He's livid! He can't believe it!"

So, my friends, I ask you: what is Boy David to do? Will he rid himself of the red-haired vamp, Rebekah? Will he discard the lanky, shifty one called Andy, who has already been forced out of working at No 10? Will he move house in Chipping Norton? This soap opera is still running. How will our hero make out? Will he survive with reputation for decency intact? Or, will he sink into that cloying sticky Slough of Despond from which there is no way out?

Arturo and I will take your bets.