Not the least revealing aspect of the successful ‘sting’ performed by Channel 4 and the Daily Telegraph on Jack Straw and Malcolm Rifkind concerns the former’s smug assumption about his coming elevation to the House of Lords.

As far as both men are concerned, of course, as the Dispatches footage clearly shows, public service and self-interest overlap somewhat surprisingly.

Straw tells the undercover reporters how much more lucrative work he will be able to perform for his Chinese ‘employers’ once he is in the Upper House. “The rules there are different,” he says, “and plenty of people have commercial interests there. I will be able to help you more.”

In fact, the rules are no less stringent in the Lords, as Straw will doubtless be told when he takes his seat.

This is unlikely to happen any day now, of course. But scandals like this one quickly blow over and Straw will no doubt quietly ‘slip upstairs’ eventually.

That political parties are able to award their members and supporters by promotion to this cosy station in life – where they are able quite literally to lord it over the rest of us – is one of the ongoing scandals of public life.

In his splendid recent biography of Jeremy Thorpe, Michael Bloch points out how much the power to promote delighted the Liberal leader.

Bloch writes: “Jeremy never ceased to be fascinated by the possibilities of patronage presented by the Upper House: he was to dangle the prospect of future peerages before many people he wished to flatter, particularly with a view to securing important donations.”

Bloch adds pointedly that he “following the Lloyd George tradition” he targeted “rich businessmen whom he hoped to persuade to donate some of their fortunes to the Liberal Party”.