Any suggestion that the late Sir Edward Heath was ever cautioned for improper sexual behaviour would need much better evidence than has so far been offered. And I say that not because I doubt that Ted was gay. I think that he probably was. But I am equally sure that, like many of his generation, he would have been super-discreet in his private affairs; if there ever was love or sex in his life, he would have been very, very careful that he could count on the complete discretion of the other person. Those who were close to him would never betray him: he would first have assured himself of that.

Ever since, as a young Tory MP, I escorted his car into my constituency, leather-jacketed on my motorbike, I used to notice the twinkle in Ted’s eye. He thought my costume and conduct a total hoot, never failed to remind me of it, and (I suspected) remembered very little else about me or his campaigning visit to West Derbyshire, for the rest of which he looked totally bored. But from then on I received and accepted Party Conference invitations to dinner at his house in the Cathedral Close, Salisbury, or his favourite restaurant at Poulton le Fylde, near Blackpool.

This was certainly not because he fancied me. I think I can guess his type and I was not it. Ted simply loved male company. He liked to be teased, even twitted, by younger men. Women at his table — and there were few — tended to be ignored unless they stood up for themselves.

The idea, however, that Ted Heath was cold or “sexless” (as I’ve sometimes heard him described) is nonsense. Little as I really knew him I learnt that he was just extraordinarily choosy about whom he relaxed with, and when. He was moody, often incredibly rude, and (I think) rather spoilt. He didn’t care about giving offence if he thought the person offended uninteresting or of no account. But when he turned on the twinkle, he twinkled and bantered with the best and showed a huge (if sometimes sadistic) sense of fun. It was his habit to say something outrageously provocative — and then melt into chuckles if his victim was not floored by it.

I once wrote a sketch about one of his rather grande-dame entrances into the Commons Chamber, and remarked that if music were allowed for former prime ministers’ arrivals he should have been accompanied wherever he went by a burst of Handel’s The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba. As it turned out I had a dinner engagement with him not long after. I was greeted with hilarity and reminded at once of the sketch, which he had obviously enjoyed.

As someone who couldn’t help liking Ted, I hope, and am fairly sure, that his life was not as emotionally arid as some have thought. What would be out of character for him about indecent behaviour in a public place would not be the indecency but the incaution. He did not moralise, and nothing about his brusque treatment of Ian Harvey in 1958, when Ted was Chief Whip and Harvey was a junior minister, strikes me as hypocritical even if it was harsh: he would have been contemptuous of the imprudence. When I discussed this with Ian he showed no resentment at the way he was dropped. The rule in those days was Be Careful and Ian knew it. So did Ted. I find it hard to believe he was ever not.

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