I really wish the rail strike wasn’t on this week. Not because I need to use trains right now but because the real story of the year isn’t getting the look-in it deserves, by which I of course mean the lifting out of The Times’s report on Saturday about Boris Johnson seeking to use his influence when Foreign Secretary to get his then girlfriend Carrie Symonds a £100,000 a year government job.

With everything else that’s going on, we just haven’t had enough dwell time on how Downing Street simply picked up the phone to Murdoch’s folk and the report disappeared without a trace.  Journalists, especially those based in Westminster, often indulge in “horse-trading” – knowing something scandalous about a well-connected politician, telling said politician they can run this story or let them have the option for the MP/minister in question to make sure it never sees the light of day by ditching the dirt on a number of their colleagues instead. It happens all the time – in my PR days, I brokered a couple of these deals myself.

Westminster has always been awash with scandals that we never get to hear about. The reason why sitcoms like Yes Minister and The Thick of It are so popular is because they are so close to the truth.

It’s not just governments that have historically manipulated the media; it’s businesses too. In 1956, The Guardian was the only newspaper to oppose Britain’s involvement in The Suez Crisis where Israel invaded Egypt. But their stance lost them so much advertising revenue from businesses that they were on the brink of financial ruin. The only way for them to survive was to reverse their stand, which they did and the bookings came back.

I remember from my journalist days writing a feature in 1990 for The Independent at the time of the first Gulf War when the world was focussed on Iraq and the invasion of Kuwait. My piece was a colourful look at the flourishing community in London of Iraqi people of Jewish origin. I’d got some great interviews and the photographer assigned with me got some fantastic pictures for it. The spread look amazing but it never saw the light of day because at the last minute one of the editors pulled it as the Saatchi brothers were from this community and we could not risk offending them and losing their clients’ massive advertising spends.

Carrie Symonds knows better than most as to how the press’s bread is buttered and here’s why: her father Matthew was one of editors of The Independent at the time.