If you’re at a high-profile but dreary launch of a political memoir at Daunt’s or find yourself in the Red Lion in Westminster any weeknight after six, Samuel Ordington-Mortimer will almost certainly be there, too. You usually hear him before you see him: a braying, gleefully indiscreet voice regaling his listeners with the latest salacious tidings at top volume.  

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By the time he hovers into view, a florid figure whose flushed cheeks perfectly match his claret-coloured trousers, you can expect either a cry of ‘dear boy’ or ‘darling girl’, regardless of how well you know him. There then follows a parade of cheek-kissing, occasionally with a ‘friendly’ squeeze on the arm or buttock, depending on how many glasses of wine have been consumed that evening. Samuel, after all, prides himself on being ‘an equal opportunities lecher’, although given that the eau d’ Ordington-Mortimer is cheap claret and tobacco, his would-be conquests are usually unbeguiled.  

Once the business of greetings and introductions is dispensed with, Samuel gets down to the matters in hand: the exchange of........

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