The Prime Minister finishes his food, sighs and pushes his plate away. 'Well, that's enough dinner,' he declares, rubbing his hands together. 'What shall I do tonight? I wonder if anyone's free.'

He goes to the telephone, leafs through a black address book and dials a number. 'Oh, hello, can you put me through to the catering manageress please?' He toys distractedly with the telephone wire, twirling it between his fingers. There is a bashful, faraway look on his face. 'Ciao, it's John. Long time, no see! How's tricks, darling? I just thought you might like a drink or something after work.'

The John Major character is a puppet. He is appearing in an episode of the television programme, Spitting Image, broadcast last autumn. How many of its seven million or more viewers knew that the absence of Norma Major referred to the Prime Minister's wife's reluctance ever to spend the night at 10 Downing Street, and her insistence on returning to the family home in Huntingdon, no matter how late? And how many were aware of the significance of that far-from-innocent reference to the 'catering manageress'?

Rumour, gossip and nudge-and-a-wink innuendo have long been a part of the British political scene. Single women in the presence of senior male politicians have for too long and too often been assumed to be there for one purpose only. But rarely has a story about someone at the very top of the political ladder achieved such widespread currency, without ever quite breaking out into the fully public domain, as the curious case of John Major and his 'mistress'.

The story begins before he became Prime Minister, when the Westminster gossipmongers were already assigning his marriage to the category of 'amicable but doomed'. Perversely, the very ordinariness of John Major's background, and the fact that his ascent to the highest office in the land had been accomplished apparently without his making any significant enemies, made some Westminster watchers all the more willing to believe that there must be sexual skeletons in the cupboard waiting to be revealed. At the same time, the bitterness of certain Thatcherite politicians and journalists at the nature of their doyenne's removal created a fertile climate in which malicious and damaging rumours about her successor could flourish.

These were to take various forms, first finding their way into print a few months after John Major's accession to the prime ministership, in Private Eye's 'Grovel' column on 26 April 1991. This was at the time that the story first broke about Chancellor Norman Lamont's 'bondage-in-the-basement' lodger, 'sex therapist' Sara Dale, whom he had taken on as a tenant in his Notting Hill home (and whose eviction was subsequently to be partly financed by the British taxpayer). It was also the time that stories about various affairs involving David Mellor (there were at least four) first began to circulate widely. Some of the journalists investigating them were complicit in having it put about that their sources originated among Mrs Thatcher's supporters in the Conservative Party.

'Grovel' reported the stories circulating about John Major's 'non-existent mistress' as follows: 'Originally it was alleged that Major's mistress lived in Streatham; then she was supposed to be a councillor in Lambeth; then a black councillor in Brixton. When I repeated this last version to a prominent Asian left-winger, he keenly contradicted me and asserted that Major's fancy woman was an Asian seamstress.

'Other seemingly respectable figures on both sides of the political spectrum have been coming up with even more absurd suggestions. Julian Evans, literary editor of Esquire, assures me that Major has been having an affair with Justin Fashanu, the gay black footballer. As if this suggestion were not ridiculous enough, I bump into Lord Annan, who tells me that he has been vouchsafed the name of Major's mistress. He consults his filofax and comes up with the name of Belinda Harley.'

For some reason, the Eye did not mention the one piece of gossip about the new Prime Minister then circulating that was to survive the passage of time and still be in circulation two years later - that John Major's supposed 'affair' involved the catering manageress who was to be referred to (though not named) in the Spitting Image broadcast.

It was more than a year after the Private Eye article appeared, and a year and a half after the rumours began to circulate in Westminster lobby circles, before the name of Clare Latimer was first exposed to the public gaze. The references to her that began to appear in the press during the summer of last year must have been as unfathomable to the general reader as the Spitting Image mention of the catering manageress.

Somewhat disingenously, the 'Mr Pepys' column, in the London Evening Standard, summed up the sense of bewilderment: 'Everyone's talking about Clare Latimer these days. She's the cook who prepares delicious dishes for Number 10 and Number 11 Downing Street. Miss Latimer runs Clare's Kitchen, a private catering concern based in Chalcot Road, Primrose Hill. She is in her forties, a cuddly, brown-haired lady who received Mr Pepys the other day attired in cut-off denim shorts and a T-shirt.

"I started 12 years ago working for Peter Walker," she tells me. "Now I work for loads of MPs." Indeed she does. I think Miss Latimer may be our foremost political caterer. But for some reason unclear to Mr Pepys, catering in SW1 has become something of an in joke among senior politicians.' The Standard columnist went on to refer to Chancellor Norman Lamont and former Home Secretary Kenneth Baker being 'helpless with mirth at the National Theatre the other night' over a reference to a saucy cook in the 18th century farce, The Recruiting Officer. 'No-one else in the large audience found anything in it to titter about, far less descend into a gale of laughter,' wrote Mr Pepys. Unlike journalists and Cabinet ministers, of course, they had not been let in on the joke.

The Evening Standard piece was the cause of some excited discussion among journalists. Representatives of the broadsheet newspapers, in particular, became especially energised at the juxtaposition in print of the key trigger words 'caterer', 'Cabinet ministers' and 'Claire Latimer'. One national newspaper lobby correspondent, for example, recalls a colleague from one of the 'quality' newspapers skipping down a House of Commons' corridor in the news-dead days of summer 1992 singing 'Happy days are here again' on the basis that sexual scandal again seemed to be compensating for what was generally expected to be a dull forthcoming parliamentary session.

Tabloid journalists, for some reason, seemed to have had other 'silly season' pursuits - like finishing off David Mellor's ministerial career - to which they were devoting their time and attention. So, twelve days after the Evening Standard triggered off what was to become a minor avalanche of pieces naming Clare Latimer, it was left to Simon Hoggart, of the Observer, to write what one of Clare Latimer's friends says Latimer regarded as 'a peculiarly vicious little piece', enquiring why articles about her 'are forever cropping up apropos very little . . . Is somebody trying to tell us something? If so, whatever might it be? Perhaps some kind soul will write to tell me.'

Hoggart was contacted by what he describes as 'two emissaries' from Latimer, who insisted that 'all the rumours were totally untrue' and demanded to know why he was 'doing this to her'. Hoggart won't say who the 'emissaries' were. But one of them seems to have been Murdo Maclean, a friend of Clare Latimer and private secretary to government chief whip, Richard Ryder. His exhortation to Hoggart to 'pull off' itself became the cause of further rumour-mongering, both about Maclean's relationship with Latimer and on whose behalf he was acting in approaching Hoggart. It was a cold, wet August in London but the hothouse climate of the Westminster gossip machine was unaffected by the weather outside.

The following week, Hoggart returned to the subject again: 'I have had several letters [about Clare Latimer], and the position is now clearer. I have also heard from friends of hers, who tell me what a marvellous person she is.' Hoggart went on to argue, 'Yet, thanks to the libel laws, her name has a hidden life of its own in the British subculture.' Why thanks to the libel laws? Because, 'As soon as people are aware that there are things the papers know are true but cannot print, they start to believe whatever they hear in gossip. This can be far more damaging to everyone involved.'

Over the next few months, allusions to Latimer's supposed affair with the Prime Minister appeared ever more frequently. So too did 'profile' pieces that would have been most unlikely to make it into the newspapers had it not been for Latimer's vicarious (and unwritten) claim to fame. Today did a double page spread about the 'Party Favourite - Clare has the Majors eating out of her hat'; the Sunday Times devoted its end-of-the-year 'A Day in the Life' feature to her, complete with a photograph of Latimer in a thigh-flashing pose as she reclined on a bearskin rug in front of the open fire at her home.

The reporter on the Sunday Times story, Sasha Miller, admits that it was done 'for mainly mischievous reasons'. (Although she gave no impression of knowing why the Sunday Times was interested, Latimer seemed happy with the arrangement; the pose for the photograph was her idea. When asked about 'all the speculation', she told Miller, 'It's all completely tedious.')

Meanwhile, the Independent on Sunday had been stirring the pot too. In a profile of Max Clifford, public relations consultant to Derek Hatton and David Mellor's lover, Antonia de Sancha, among others, Zoe Heller had referred to a 'cataclysmic' scandal that Clifford had told her about concerning 'a very senior politician and his ex-mistress - a woman in the catering business. She had supposedly come to Clifford, concerned that the tabloids had acquired photographic evidence of her affair with the politician.' The photographs, although Heller dared not say so in her article, were supposed to show a foursome - consisting of John Major and Claire Latimer, out together with David Mellor and Antonia de Sancha.

Clifford told Heller he had persuaded the woman not to go public with her story, and that he had arranged for the photographs to be destroyed. He declined to comment to NSS on reports that he had claimed to have been approached by Clare Latimer - saying only that if he had been he would have advised her to 'make the most of the publicity while it's there . . . enjoy it', and that he was not acting for her now. He did, however, speak suspiciously of a break-in to his office before Christmas - 'the first in 16 years at this address' - when only 'certain documents' were stolen.

Three weeks after Heller's story appeared, the Independent on Sunday returned to the theme with a self-confessed 'flyer' article by Rhys Williams, which expanded upon Max Clifford's assertions in the context of a piece on the non-release of a record called Clare's Kitchen by the erstwhile chart-toppers, Soho. The record, which 'points out the hypocrisy of a political party that has championed family values', according to the group's founder, Tim London, was released in the US but not in Britain. Soho's manager, Billy Keane, now says the group is releasing another record about the affair - on a different label - next month.

Most of this journalistic toe-dipping was relatively superficial - not so much 'dabbling in the stuff of people's souls' as toying with the trivia of bar-room gossip. Though John Major and Clare Latimer no doubt regarded it differently, it was meant light-heartedly. 'It was fun - gossip, yes, but not salacious or nasty,' says one editor. Others, however, were investigating the story with more serious intent.

One of the first papers onto it was the Daily Mail. 'We first heard about it two weeks after him [John Major] becoming Prime Minister [i.e. November/December 1990],' says one of those involved at the time. 'I thought it was Spycatcher coming back. It was a massive attempt to destabilise Major, and just then when he had just become PM. I think it was a big smear operation, a quite deliberate attempt to undermine the new Prime Minister. There was the timing, and then there were two other stories in quick succession. The moment one fell through, others came along. I couldn't believe it was true.' Even so, the Mail did follow it up: 'Well, you always look into these things to an extent.'

So too did a team of News International journalists, among whose sources were some of those dissatisfied Thatcherite Tories. They were joined, at various times, by other representatives of the Fourth Estate, who tried all the usual channels of investigative muckraking - approaches to friends, interviews with acquaintances, doorstepping the 'accused', vigils at the relevant locations and so on. (NSS's efforts at the last, it must be said, were notably ineffective, being peremptorily curtailed by the local constabulary.) 'It never added up to anything solid,' says one of those involved. 'With Mellor, it was relatively easy. There were the gaps in his schedules, his indiscretion and his sheer bloody arrogance - he thought he could do anything and it would never come out. Even then, we couldn't have done it if they had just denied it. With Major there was nothing to go on.'

Bill Hegarty, the People editor who broke the Mellor story, agrees. He says it was the same with virtually all the scandal rumours that reached him from the Westminster 'gossip shop'. Before the general election last April, he asked his political editor for a list of all the stories about leading politicians then circulating in the Commons. 'He came up with a list of a dozen or so. I said, "Forget the justification for going after the stories for a minute - how many can we begin to stand up?" There were none.'

Hegarty says the People didn't investigate Major, 'firstly because we wouldn't have had anywhere to start, and secondly because there was no justification for doing so.' Hegarty points out that the rumour that reached him said the 'affair' ended before Major became Prime Minister. 'In any case, there was no suggestion that it was affecting how he did his job. Someone came to me with a story once about Thatcher, saying she'd had an affair with someone in Wales. The dates and other details all matched up. But we didn't investigate it because there was no justification.'

Hegarty says he doesn't think any of the other Mirror Group newspapers took up the story either, a view that is confirmed by the then Mirror editor Richard Stott, who says, 'We did nothing at all on it. There was no evidence, so how can you?' This contradicts another oft-repeated story to the effect that there was a 'Mexican stand-off' in the run-up to the last election, when the News International group of papers was said to have agreed not to run a story it had about a senior Labour shadow cabinet member in return for the Mirror group agreeing to hold off on its investigations into leading Tories. But most Mirror journalists confirm what Hegarty and Stott say. According to one senior editor, 'Stott had a very hard line on it. He believed it could seriously backfire and damage the paper.'

Yet still the rumour refused to go away. By the end of last year, the north London satirical magazine Scallywag was daring Clare Latimer and the Prime Minister to sue, blaming his supposed extra-marital liaison for John Major's support for his friend David Mellor, and claiming 'evidence' from a local mini-cab firm that it had taken Latimer to and from late-night rendezvous at Number 10. In much the same way that Max Clifford has clients to market, Scallywag editor Simon Regan has magazines to sell. It is in the interests of both to exaggerate (or fabricate) what they know, and their part at the centre of it all. Their investigative methods are, shall we say, somewhat less than rigorous.

The same cannot be said of award-winning journalist David Leigh, who until the end of last year worked for Thames Television's This Week programme under its editor Paul Woolwich. Leigh and Woolwich, a former editor of the press-watching Hard News programme, are an unlikely pair to be found looking into an alleged Prime Ministerial affair.

Yet before Christmas this is precisely what they were doing. The idea, according to one This Week insider, came from Woolwich: 'For once in his life, this was a story that couldn't be stopped by political pressure. With Thames having been shut down and everyone thrown out of their jobs for annoying the government, you can see the attraction of this sort of thing.'

'It was one of a number of stories around at the time,' says Woolwich. 'So we looked into it. We didn't find anything, it is merely allegation, unsubstantiated rumour. [Our looking into] was a response to the general rumour-mill. It remains just a rumour, but it was a totally legitimate journalistic enquiry . . . At the time it was very relevant - we had Charles and Camillagate, Mellor and de Sancha. [The proposed programme] was to look at whether we should have privacy laws, in which an element would have been John Major - if we could have stood it up.'

David Leigh was eventually taken off the story when the Matrix-Churchill court case collapsed - to his relief, one suspects, although he does not say it. Tracking down friends of Clare Latimer's sister, and investigating claims that Major called Latimer by the pet name of 'Fluffie' is not really his forte. But, like Woolwich, Leigh does defend the investigation as legitimate journalistic enquiry. 'Prime ministers shouldn't have things to hide,' he says, 'because those who do have things to hide are open to manipulation by others.' In common with others who have spent time on this 'story', though, he now wonders precisely who is manipulating whom.

For all these investigative endeavours, conducted right across the journalistic spectrum, no one could come up with sufficient evidence to justify publication. So why did they pursue it with such vigour? Was it really a legitimate subject for serious enquiry, as Woolwich and Leigh suggest? Or was it - indeed, is this article - no more than yet another example of prurient indulgence, of interest to the public but not in the public interest?

If true, the fact of a prime ministerial affair could have had significance in terms of how David Mellor's position was handled before he eventually resigned. But that would only have been so because the affair was secret. People in positions of power shouldn't have secrets, as David Leigh argues, because it leaves them open to concealed pressure - or, in extremis, blackmail - not least from the press itself. In this context, the Sun's editorial comment, in the light of proposals for new privacy laws - 'What have they got to hide?' - would take on the new, altogether more sinister air of a veiled threat.

On the other hand, if Clare Latimer is not having an affair with the Prime Minister (and no one has produced a shred of evidence to suggest that she is) then why should she have to put up with this pot of bubbling rumour? Why do we have libel laws that can strangle serious investigation but allow public sniggering to go unchecked? What is objectionable about the rumour-mongering and speculation of the past two years is not so much the fact that journalists have carried out investigations to try to to discover the truth behind the gossip as that, having come up with no evidence to justify publication, some of them have gone ahead with the sort of behind-the-hand whisperings that are more poisonous and, as Simon Hoggart says, more damaging than open discussion and disclosure.

None of this would have been prevented by strengthened privacy or libel laws. None is against the Press Complaints Commission code of practice. Indeed, the subculture of rumour flourishes because of some of the existing restraints on newspaper publishing. It is the culture of secrecy, and the particularly British culture of prurience, that gives such rumours their potency. We should ask the question: if David Mellor (and others who have found themselves in similar positions) did not resign or run away from the supposed stigma resulting from their sexual indiscretions, would this strip the rumour-mongers of their power?

And finally, what of Clare Latimer herself? She told NSS: 'I'm sorry but I can't talk to anyone about it. The whole thing is just ridiculous because it is totally untrue. It has been around for two years now, and I've been told I mustn't comment on it at all by advisors. It's a shame in a way but I really can't talk about it because anything I say is just going to stir it up even more, and if I don't say anything it will just go away quicker.'

And when (and if) it does, who will be next on the rumour-mongers hit-list?

Back to The John Major Files