Will the end of the Conservatives kill off the bonkbuster?

Don’t think too long or too hard about this – because, trust me, it’s not an image you’ll want in your head – but Conservative politicians are synonymous with sex. The current Conservative administration, whose 14 years in office have been fuelled by sex scandals, has begotten a new generation of bonkbuster writers, not least Boris Johnson’s former Downing Street aide, Cleo Watson. While Alan Clark was lustily pursuing women and salivating over Thatcher’s most “sexually attractive” attributes – her “dainty ankles”, in case you were wondering – Cooper, Jackie Collins, Shirley Conran, Judith Krantz and many others were selling millions of books featuring women who wanted power and orgasms… and knew how to get both. In 1992, “minister of fun” David Mellor’s affair with Antonia de Sancha, prompted public revulsion and amusement with tales of toe-sucking and Chelsea football shirt-wearing sexual antics. Since Sunak entered Downing Street 18 months ago, with a promise to bring “integrity and accountability” to government, the number of Tory MPs to lose the whip over various alleged wrongdoings and misdemeanours continued to mount – to the point where those forced to sit as independents outnumbered the Liberal Democrats.