Twitter has been missing the erudite dry wit of Patrick O’Flynn – the former Express political editor turned UKIP MEP who now writes for the Spectator – for some days now. Guido has got the tale of his Twitter tribulations from him directly. Paddy fell for a phishing ruse and the hackers changed his password and email address. They had control of it for a while before Twitter alerted Paddy to the suspicious activity. Such are the benefits you might think of being a blue tick. Twitter restored the account to the rightful owner and all was well. For 4 hours…

Paddy then found his account had been suspended, and so it has stayed this week despite emails to Twitter HQ in San Francisco. Whatever the hackers did presumably triggered a belated ban. Paddy is famously polite and gentlemanly on Twitter so surely it could not be a violation by him for perhaps gently mocking Lord Adonis? Guido and thousands of his followers would like to see him restored to his pomp and our timelines…