OH FOR pity's sake.

I don't care whether William Hague shared a room with another man.

I don't care that the twin beds can be pushed together.

I don't care whether his special adviser has floppy hair and a cheeky grin.

And I don't care about what did or did not go on in said hotel room, pictures of which were splashed all over the tabloids at the weekend.

This isn't Saddam's hidey-hole or the bath in which Hitler used to wash along to the strains of Wagner.

Does he or does he not do a good job? Is he fiscally responsible? Does he represent the UK well as Foreign Secretary? All questions I think far more important.

I don't care which team Mr Hague does or does not bat for, and I suspect there are a lot of people out there who think as I do.

As for the insinuations about how the special adviser got the job, which for all the world knows was fair and square, I keep wondering whether those making them would have made the same accusations were there not a nasty seam of homophobia running underneath this story - something which is making me feel slightly queasy.

But Mr Hague has made a serious error of judgement by treating these vicious internet rumours about his personal life as something which require a long and deeply personal public statement about the nature of his relationship with his wife and their fertility issues.

Tempting though it might be to 'set the record straight', who has actually benefitted from doing so about their personal life? Ever?

Mr Hague has dignified these squalid rumours with his regard and turned tittle-tattle into a national debate.

He has opened the floodgates by doing so - on himself, his wife and his former special adviser.

Every possible angle to the story will now be explored by a media voracious for the latest line.

I wish the Hagues well in their battle to conceive a child, and in general. I hope whatever their relationship is, or isn't, they are happy in the future.

FOR those hit hardest by the recession, take some comfort from the fact MPs will have to pay more for their drinks in the taxpayer-subsidised House of Commons bar from today.

They will have to pay 70p extra for a bottle of Becks, 65p more for Stella and 35p more for a pint of beer.

The cost of a cup of tea at the House has alredy risen from 35p to 60p and coffee from 45p to 75p.

The move comes as part of cutbacks designed to save £500,000 this year.

AND finally...

JODIE Marsh unleashes her inner Valleys Girl while denying any romance with former MP Lembit Opik: "I am not having some Cheeky Girl's cast-off’’.