Veteran television presenter and journalist Andrew Neil, also dubbed the 'Bachelor of Fleet Street', has revealed he secretly married his partner of five years, Susan Nilsson, earlier this month.
Writing on social media site Twitter, the 66-year-old presenter of BBC shows This Week and Daily Politics said: "Secret is out! So I thought y'all might like a picture!' before posting a snap with Nilsson, a Swedish engineer said to be 20 years his junior.
According to the Daily Mail, the couple wed near the broadcaster's villa in the South of France. The only guests were Noel Edmonds and his wife.
Broadcasters including Piers Morgan, Andrew Marr and Kirsty Wark sent Neil and Nilsson messages of congratulations, with Morgan joking that the "final bastion of singlehood crumbles".
Labour MP John Prescott said he hoped the couple were drinking Blue Nun wine - a reference to a recurring joke on This Week, which suggests all viewers are sitting at home with a bottle.
However the last laugh could be on satirical magazine Private Eye, which has made Andrew Neil the subject of a long-standing joke, in which a picture of the BBC presenter alongside a glamorous make-up artist is reprinted every week under different pretences.
According to The Guardian, Neil and Nilsson have been together for nearly five years. The 44-year-old Swede is the director of communications of engineering and environmental consultancy the Waterman Group.
He has described her as "wonderful, beautiful and intelligent. She keeps me in check.”