George Osborne, the normally smooth Tory shadow chancellor, was clearly feeling the pressure today as the media in full feral mode tried to pin down what actually happened in Corfu last summer.
The BBC's Nick Robinson gives a useful synopsis of how the story originated, gestated and then emerged full-blown as today's splash in the Times. The nub of it that Osborne couldn't resist telling his friends about the nasty stories Peter Mandelson, whose Terminator-like persistence has seen him make a third comeback to British politics, was allegedly telling about Gordon Brown at the time.
Until very recently Mandelson and Brown were long-time foes - Brown never quite able to forgive his old chum for backing Tony Blair for the Labour leadership back in 1994.
When Mandelson made his surprise return to the cabinet earlier this month as business secretary, the Tories went on to raise questions about Mandelson's relationship with Oleg Deripaska, the Russian aluminium tycoon "who has shown an uncanny knack for cultivating the rich, powerful and important", according to Luke Harding, the Guardian's Moscow correspondent.
Robinson explains that once the Tories dished up the dirt on Mandelson, Nat Rothschild, who is friendly with Mandelson, became angry with his old Oxford pal Osborne for breaching the privacy of his summer party in Corfu.
Rothschild then wrote the letter alleging that Osborne discussed a £50,000 donation to the Tory party while on Deripaska's yacht in Corfu, hence Osborne's uncomfortable appearance in front of the hacks.
The Tories should have been prepared - Benjamin Wegg-Prosser, a former Mandelson aide and a former Guardian executive, had hinted in his blog that Osborne might come to regret his "blabbermouth about Peter's vacation".
Robinson's take on all this: "There's an old saying in politics - if you get into the gutter you have to be prepared to get dirty."
On his daily blog, Mike White, the Guardian's veteran political commentator, takes his familiar "there is less than meets the eye" attitude to this political squall.
What does this all tell us? Mainly that Rothschild, 37, scion of Europe's greatest banking family for two centuries and a very rich financier in his own right – it helps to have a little capital to start off with - does not take bad behaviour lying down.
What interests White more is the role of Rupert Murdoch, the proprietor of the Times.
If his papers get the OK to run with the story – both anti-Mandelson and now anti-Tory – then Rupert is still playing his each way bet, his cat-and-mouse game with British politicians. They're the mice, by the way. Does Cameron need this in a major economic crisis? Does Gordon Brown? No.
