‘Tis a hard life – not many men could nip into their office, produce £4,000 from the safe and pop it into an envelope – with the (so far unfulfilled) promise of more to come, moments after being confronted by their spurned lover. But then not every cheating husband is an MP.

Step forward Patrick Mercer, who the Mail revealed this weekend got cold feet about ditching his wife for another Member’s secretary. Funnily enough, Mercer’s own £15,000pa “Junior Caseworker” wasn’t in the office at the time. What with her, coincidently, being his spurned spouse, Cait.

Mercer has employed his wife in dubious circumstances since 2001. With his novels and the thousands he takes off of shady security firms The Olive Group and Red Amber, quite why he needs to pay his wife for what appears to be very little work remains a mystery. The £135,000 he has paid her in the last nine years has not been “scientifically calculated” in terms of hours worked, and indeed many have questioned quite what her role actually is…