I’m pleased to say that last week’s great parliamentary mystery – just what exactly did Bob Marshall-Andrews actually say to Jim Dowd to cause this altercation – has now been solved courtesy of Bruce Anderson, writing in today’s Indy.

It seems Bob did not, as has been suggested, refer to his parliamentary colleague as a ‘faggot’ but as a fagio – a term apparently used in Mafia circles for a ‘gopher’ and indicative of nothing more than a general contempt for Dowd’s slavish adherance to the party line.

There that’s cleared up.