Downing Street's heavy breathers

Sexual relations between journalists and politicians are mercifully rare - as far as we can tell, that is.

This week's revelation that Tony Blair's former aide, Anji Hunter, known as "the gatekeeper" to 10 Downing Street, has been having a long affair with the political editor of Sky News, Adam Boulton, certainly came as a bolt from the blue - and not just to Mrs Boulton and to Ms Hunter's husband of 22 years.

The news raised awkward questions for editors and news desks and especially for Mr Boulton's colleagues in the political lobby at Westminster. First question: was this a genuine news story?

The Sun had known about the liaison for some time, but editor David Yelland took the view that readers of The Sun wouldn't know either of the protagonists and so wouldn't be much interested. Or was that just a convenient excuse for not embarrassing another part of the Murdoch empire? ITN's political editor, John Sergeant, was also believed to be in the know and chose to exercise discretion. It hardly merited a bong on News at Ten anyway.

It might be argued that there is a public interest in knowing if Sky News secured an unfair advantage over other media through this secret affair.

As an eager-beaver political reporter ("the hardest-working correspondent ever" was the verdict of one admiring colleague in the lobby), Mr Boulton would doubtless welcome any additional crumbs of information or insight his relationship brought him. But he would also be careful not to compromise his paramour. For her part, Ms Hunter would surely do or say nothing to harm the interests of Blair, whom she has known since childhood.

This affair's significance pales in comparison with the secret passion of Marcia Williams, now Lady Falkender, who was Harold Wilson's private and political secretary at 10 Downing Street when she bore two children by Walter Terry, the Daily Mail's political correspondent, in the 1960s and 1970s. That affair did not become public knowledge until years later.

Terry's colleagues found out when Ian Aitken, the veteran Guardian lobby man, and John Bourne, of the Financial Times, were walking through Downing Street in the early hours (as you could in those days) and were surprised to see Terry's white Citroen parked there with the windows steamed up. They were even more surprised when a window was wound down to reveal Marcia and Terry in each other's arms. Even then, they didn't think to publish the story. "It didn't seem any of our business," says Aitken.

One of Wilson's junior ministers later complained of the difficulty he had in getting to see Wilson. Finally, he was admitted to Downing Street at 11 one evening, only to find Terry and Marcia sitting with the Prime Minister. He had to state his business in their presence while Terry poured the drinks.

I asked Aitken if he and his lobby colleagues resented the access Terry had. "He undoubtedly got some front-page scoops. Some of them were good but others were, frankly, so much Wislon [sic] propaganda and he still had to file them even though he knew they were duff. So it worked both ways really."

The Mail on Sunday, which broke the Anji Hunter-Adam Boulton story, and The Daily Telegraph, both firm opponents of New Labour, had few inhibitions, treating the fact that both had left their families as a news event (they each have two children). The Mail on Sunday also claimed that the affair raises fresh questions about the close relationship between New Labour and Rupert Murdoch. The Guardian and Independent ignored the story. Who was right?

Where was the public interest? Did the political lobby, sometimes accused of acting like a secret society, choose to keep it "in the family"? And did those Westminster journalists who had heard the gossip pass it on to their papers? And if not, what do their editors think about this?

The press can be accused of double standards here. Had an elected politician been involved, the journalists would doubtless have thrown him or her to the wolves, instead of looking after one of their own. They demand transparency and openness of everyone else, but keep their own dirty linen under wraps.

A lobby reporter told me: "It came as news to me, but some people here have apparently known for a couple of years, when it became clear on a visit to Paris with Blair that Anji and Adam were sharing a bedroom.

Because both were respected figures, those in the loop kept their mouths shut."

Another said: "I remember 11 September, when Blair had to leave the TUC conference. We all went back to London on the same train. Anji came back to the compartment I was sharing with Boulton and joined us.

"When we asked what she'd heard, she said they were getting the news off Radio 4, just as we were. Then I remember Adam saying to her, 'Tell Blair to tell Bush not to do the first thing that comes into his head'. I never suspected for a moment there was anything going on between them."

It seems ironic to some that such intimacy has been achieved at a personal level between representatives of Downing Street and the political lobby at a time when relations between the two institutions have reached an all-time low, leading to vitriolic outbursts against the media from Alastair Campbell, Blair's director of communications.

This line of thought leads to other questions: Did Campbell know? Did Blair know? Did Boulton's bosses at Sky News know or care? Did he gain privileged access to the Government? And was the affair the real reason why Hunter left Blair's service, in unexplained circumstances, last November for a £200,000-ayear job at BP?

Some might raise a further question: does any of this really matter when, by all accounts, both are people of integrity and professionalism? And is it any of our business anyway if they happen to fall in love?

The Terry-Falkender affair undoubtedly raised some issues of public importance, such as security, that deserved an airing they never got. I doubt if the same will come to be said of Ms Hunter and Mr Boulton, whose relationship raises more private than political problems, especially now that she is no longer part of Blair's team. They should perhaps be left alone to deal with them.