Features

About the only thing you can be sure of is that Brian Paddick has slept with fewer women than Nick Clegg.

Campaigning on the Holloway Road the morning after the news of his extended family broke, Ken Livingstone quipped: "Everyone seems to be keen to get pictures of me with children today. I can't imagine why that is."

Yes, it is possible that he was happier that the details appeared first on the BBC rather than in a newspaper with a record of hostility towards him.

Much more likely, of course, is simply the fact that a burden has been lifted. For more than a decade and a half, the threat of exposure has hung over him - more importantly over the two women and three previously undisclosed children he shares his life with.

Not secret, just private, he says.

It is possible, too, that the three children themselves, because they have reached their mid-teens undisturbed, are at least now at an age when they will understand the reason for disclosure, and the ways of the press.

In the long-term, could they come perhaps to feel some relief, even if at present mortified by the prospect of identification?

But the more pertinent question may be to ask why - in this age of the expose and the confessional - Livingstone has managed to keep his particular circumstances to himself?

It seems quite clear that no special effort has gone into concealment. In the local neighbourhoods involved, some claim to have known the facts for years.

It is clear all the family members involved have known everything, and many close friends too.

Neighbours; school events; foreign holidays; visits to City Hall; regular Sunday roast dinners where everyone could get together.

Simply a very modern set-up. And not even one especially unconventional. Particularly in the metropolis one certainly with which many people will be able to identify.

Perhaps the most fascinating thing here is that in an era when it is rare for the most personal facts - peccadillos even - of political figures to stay private for long, in the face of a fierce and unrelenting media, Ken Livingstone has managed a notable achievement.

In short, no relative, no friend nor foe, no bystander has spilled the beans..

It doesn't take a detailed analysis of the methods of the popular press to work out that that is clearly because no one has felt the motivation to talk, whether out of spite or hurt or financial temptation.

There has been no kiss and tell.

Could that be because, just because, Ken Livingstone - though far from ideal, far from responsible, far from fair even on those affected - may at least have tried to do the best by all the people involved?