In autumn 2005, just before the annual Tory Party Conference, Screws editor Andy Coulson ran a front page splash…

TOP TORY, COKE AND THE HOOKER

Illustrated with pictures of angel-faced Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, it claimed that eleven years before, while he was at Oxford, the then flawless Osborne was said, without any convincing corroboration, to have been watched by ‘dominatrix’ hooker, Natalie Rowe, snorting a line of coke. Her boyfriend, an unnamed friend of Osborne’s had gone on to become an addict, the report alleged.

It was, on closer inspection, an archetypal Screws non-story, devoid of any hard content, carefully worded to avoid any serious come-back, but just salacious enough to justify its front page status, and, of course, devoid of any genuine revelations about the politician, beyond the fact that in his youth he’d had a friend who knew a prostitute and who’d become addicted to an unspecified drug.

Now, as the fuss over the non-event of Oleg Deripaska not giving the Tories any money fades away, the Screws feebly try to fan the flames by reviving their fatuous story. This time, one of their hardened old smut writers, Sara Nuwar has cobbled together a string of fresh “quotes” from Natalie, all made up since the original piece appeared three years ago. As always, the “revelations” are full of sloppy non-sequiturs and contradictions. Natalie, a hooker allegedly brought in to brighten up Bullingdon Club meetings (never mentioned in the 2005 story), “tells” Ms Nuwar  ‘I felt an empathy with George because we were both outsiders.’ In the sense that he had been voted into the Bullingdon and she had not?

She offers specious explanations for the other members considering George socially inferior and teasing him, while claiming what great “pals” they all were. Yet again a clumsy attempt is made to connect Osborne with cocaine, without categorically stating he used the stuff. No doubt Natalie met young Osborne at a party for which she’d been engaged as a little erotic light relief, and perhaps she managed to add to whatever purse she received then by taking a few more £K from the Screws for helping to concoct yesterday’s absurd 2-page spread. If she’s lucky, she might get another bite of the cherry if Osborne becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer in a few years time.

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