If you can smell fish that's probably what it is...

It should have come as no surprise to anyone that John Prescott was engaged in a bit of the "extra-marital".

Who could blame him?

It's my guess that in the appropriate stakes he had something to prove.

History shows that less than physically attractive politicians have often been prone.

When news of his indiscretion broke I - and I'm sure I wasn't alone - detected a distinct shadow overhead.

Was it a plane? Was it a train? Was it the truth?

No, of course not.

One possibility, which struck me at the time, was of that well known and oft-abused political fish, the Red Herring.

But I put the suspicion to the back of my mind: journalistic paranoia, I thought (or maybe wishful thinking?).

And then over the weekend Defence Secretary John Reid came within a hair's breadth of being busted for possession of class C drugs.

Again I had the impression of a political ruse badly executed.

Whatever the truth value of my idle thoughts, however, neither of these real or imagined attempts to distract the media (and the public) from Charles Clarke's "foreign rapists go free" fiasco have been effective.

I fear the proof will be in Thursday's local election pudding.

OK, I know: nothing's new under the sun and all this has happened before and will continue to happen.

That's politics, after all.

What really worries me though are all those protest votes, many of which, if the word on the street is anything to go by, will have BNP written all over them.