From Profumo to Blears: a tale of shabby behaviour.

I remember the Profumo Affair, as it came to be known. The salacious part was the sexual hi-jinks of the Cliveden set - "how the other half loves" as the wags of the day might have put it. The political part was that call girls were being shared between Russian diplomats and Cabinet Ministers. The stupid part was Profumo lying to MacMillan about his involvement in an attempt to cover up.

There are not too many comparisons with today's parliamentary scandal but I do want to note that Profumo left office and parliament in absolute disgrace and then after a lifetime's penance doing unheralded charity work eventually redeemed himself.

In the end he proved a better example than today's crop of MPs who appear to believe that brandishing a cheque in a broadcast studio is their quick channel to redemption,