Michael Ashcroft’s “Red Queen” biography of Angela Rayner has already generated a lot of headlines, Guido is of the view that the biggest story in the book is yet to be told. In an almost throw-away paragraph at the end of Chapter Nine in the book is an explosive tale:

“What is perhaps more intriguing is that, throughout this time, there was alarm bordering on paranoia in select Labour circles that the extramarital affair of a senior party figure other than Rayner was in danger of being exposed. Most damagingly, the male politician at the centre of the claims is said to have enjoyed a long-standing relationship with a woman that had lasted until after his own wife was pregnant with their first child. The politician’s lover, who is herself a public figure, then went on to have a child of her own. She left the name of her child’s father off her child’s birth certificate. This led to concerns that the Labour politician was in fact the child’s father, but there was no evidence to support that.”

It is a story that hacks are gossiping about in private, the story has been going around in legal circles for years and Guido hears that more than one newspaper is only now trying to stand the story up. Labour’s senior campaign operatives are well aware of the story and are said to have prepared a counter-strategy if it breaks during the election campaign.

Most Lobby hacks are aware of the name of the “senior party figure” in question and yet seem strangely incurious to investigate. Guido has however seen the birth certificate in question where the father’s name is left blank. Curious…

Given how a recent PM was asked over and over again about his private life before and once he was PM, including how many children he had, Lobby hacks seem strangely lacking in curiosity during this campaign. Perhaps we will have to wait for someone like Piers Morgan or Nick Robinson to ask the classic question “Have you ever been unfaithful to your wife?” Maybe Nick Ferrari could ask the same question he asked of Boris; “How many children do you have?”