It's serious, say the nation's news people. Question: how serious is it? Answer: It is seriously serious. The serious nature of these serious allegations can not be understated, but there's not much understatement from this country's newsrooms.
The seriousness of this serious story is being hammered home by news men with their most serious face on, extolling how... serious it all is. The news is that Chris Huhne will be charged by the Crown Prosecution Service with perverting the course of justice over some points for speeding.
Some fat lipped, thin-rimmed bespectacled pundit on TV actually said that the Huhne story was immensely serious because it could bring the criminal justice system into disrepute. I don't think he was joking when he said that. The only assemblage of people who are more mired in disrepute is the banking community. You might as well say that an allegation against a prostitute would bring the whole selling yourself for money industry into disrepute. Disrepute is the law's natural state. It's an ass, remember.
It's not as though he's even a household name. I bet he's not a household name in his own house. And now he's been replaced by an even less commonly known chap who has risen to a level of obscurity that not even a deep sea mollusc could achieve. Ed Davey anyone? No, I thought not.
And it's not as thought this is news, as in "new". This all happened in 2003. Maths fans will have calculated, with the aid of a calculator, that that is over eight years ago. It's almost nine years old and THAT is the most serious and important news story of the day? A billion people went to bed hungry last night, Iran is about to start World War Three, a ferry sank in Papua New Guinea killing a hundred and the only story that is getting more air time than Chris bloomin' Huhne is the fact that it is a bit parky out. The weather is the only thing stopping our news people from eating their own faces off trying to persuade us that the Huhne story is really, really serious. It seems that the seriousness of a story is in indirect proportion to the amount of time that the news devotes to telling us how serious it is. When Iran FedExes a nuclear device to Tel Aviv, we won't need to be cajoled into believing how serious it is, but faced with another slow news day, journalists and news anchors are hyperventilating in the face of what appears to be total apathy from the public. Seriously, is that all you've got? On the scale of political scandals it ranks some way behind the serving of a beer called Top Totty in a bar in the Palace of Westminster, advertised by a cartoon woman with few clothes on. Which story do you think got more hits on the news websites today?
The real scandal is that Chris Huhne was appointed Climate Change Secretary in the summer of last year, when it was appreciably warmer than it is at the moment. Under his shoddy leadership, the temperature has plummeted from the level at which he took over: balmy, to the level we see today. Well, secretary Chris - take a letter - it's chuffing freezing outside and it's all your fault. And what will be his punishment for presiding over this catastrophic drop in temperature? That's right, a Ministerial Severance Payment of £17,207. That'll teach him! It will be minus 12 degrees centigrade tonight - not even the atmosphere surrounding John Terry is that cold. And what will that mean? It will mean a flurry. That is, a flurry of photographs from readers of news websites of pictures of sheep in white fields and icicles hanging from roofs, as though these are phenomena on a par with a visitation from space aliens. It is called "winter" people - its not uncommon for it to get cold. This means, though,that the Huhne saga will not occupy our news people long, as there may be snow on the way and in newsland this means they will get to use the C word: chaos. They'll find some if it kills them. And you know what chaos causes? That's right - fury. The F word. Two words that cause a perfect storm of local interest and lots of footage. Never mind about Chris - this story could run and run.