Remember Neil Hamilton? The disgraced Tory MP from the 1990s who later joined UKIP in Wales and was elected again?

His career was derailed by the now-deceased sex predator and conspiracy theorist Mohamed Al-Fayed, once owner of Harrods.

Hamilton famously claimed he’d never accepted money from Mr Al-Fayed and never asked for it.

However, the jury disagreed and their verdict was upheld by a court of appeal.

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Hamilton and his wife, fairly or unfairly, became synonymous with a Tory culture that condoned accepting money from wealthy interests, claiming it was never requested and the donor never asked for anything in return (I can sense your eyebrows raised in disbelief).

Those who subscribe to this rakish defence often believe other improbable things, such as the escape of a Romanov child from the 1917 Revolution or Bernie Madoff’s benevolence to the Salvation Army.

This argument gained further traction after the Hamilton case and was perfected by the Tories during the Covid crisis.

They handed out lucrative public sector contracts over drinks at London clubs to their cronies and those in the inner circle.

Amazingly, the Hamiltons capitalised on their notoriety by becoming reality TV contestants and eventually full-blown media (albeit D-list) celebrities.

Veteran journalist Martin Bell defeated the corrupt Hamilton in the Tatton by-election, but couldn’t quite quell the British public’s appetite for rehabilitating bad ’uns and scoundrels who have peppered the political........

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