The story that is tantalising Westminster this morning is that ABC News are going to broadcast an interview with Natalie Rowe where she alleges that she took cocaine with George Osborne during £350-a-time dominatrix sessions. The new hook for the story is that she is suing the News of the World for hacking her phone whereas when the Metropolitan police told George Osborne his phone was also hacked, he wasn’t interested in pursuing the issue. The story has been re-hashed as a result of the pending legal action.

The underlying suspicion of many seasoned Westminster observers is that Coulson’s hire was more Osborne than Cameron’s doing. A few weeks ago this point was being made in comment pieces on the media pages of the broadsheets. There was then a spate of stories suggesting that it was in fact Hague who was responsible for bringing Coulson into the Tory family, Hague was formerly a columnist for Andy Coulson’s News of the World. That briefing was put about to undermine the idea that Osborne had any motivation, quid pro quo, to hire Coulson.

The news that Vivian White, the respected Panorama veteran working on the Andy Coulson / hacking story for broadcast later in the year, had met Natalie Rowe, leaked out a few weeks ago. Knowledge of this is what first prompted some panic in No. 11….