As that ghastly lard bucket John Prescott fulminated on Radio 4’s Today programme last week over the evils of the press in the wake of the verdicts in the phone-hacking trial, I wondered if his interviewer would dare to raise the subject of Labour politicians in leg-over situations with secretaries, and specifically with one of his, by name Tracey Temple. Some hope!

What I did hear on Today, though — and it was the opinion of a Liberal Democrat spin-doctor — was what an exceptionally pleasant man Andy Coulson had been during his days in Downing Street. Contrast this, for instance, with what used to be said about Labour’s Alastair Campbell.

Amid all the pseudo outrage concerning phone-hacking — has it really harmed anybody? — it was good to hear someone, indeed a political rival, speaking well of a man now known to have been involved in it.

Being a good egg doubtless assisted in Andy’s meteoric career as a journalist; for one can charm as well as bully (see the aforementioned A. Campbell) one’s way to the top.

I formed a warm view of him myself during 36 hours or so in his company before that rise had begun. This was in the late 1980s, when he was a teenage reporter on his local newspaper, the Basildon Echo.

The pair of us were summoned to the University of Aston, in an area insalubrious even by the standards of Birmingham, to serve as guinea pigs for Westminster Press editors on a course to improve their job interview techniques.

Thrown into each other’s company in this arid suburb, we hit it off very well. Soon after, he went to join the Sun’s Bizarre column — and the rest, as they say, is history.