EDWINA CURRIE, the former mistress of Sir John Major, and Margaret Cook, whose husband Robin left her for his secretary, met in a Radio 4 studio yesterday to discuss Westminster affairs.

It was always going to be an animated conversation.

Ms Currie said that John Prescott looked like he was having a “fabulous time” in those photographs with Tracey Temple.

Mrs Cook advised Pauline Prescott to “make him crawl”.

And yet not even Martha Kearney, the Woman’s Hour ringmaster, could have expected it to descend to the point where Mrs Cook called Ms Currie a “dominant baboon”.

She was claiming that Ms Currie, as the politician in her marriage, had no idea what it was like to be married to a powerful man. They will “inevitably” stray, she opined. “Women who are married to powerful men just want to hang on.”

And spite from the sisterhood — including Ms Currie — doesn’t help when you lose your grip, she added.

Undeterred, Ms Currie set about offering Mrs Cook some belated marriage guidance.

The former Mrs Foreign Secretary, she advised, should have known better than to have a career of her own. “If you leave him for months on end in London, and he likely to stray – as it looked as if your ex-husband was – then you are taking a hell of a risk”, she oh-so-tactfully suggested.

“If you want to make sure that the head on the pillow is yours,” she said, “go with him.” Mrs Cook was less than amused. She knew exactly what Mrs Prescott is going through, and it’s “pretty hellish”. Ms Currie’s attitude sprang from “ignorance” about the whole experience.

Ms Currie, who this week admitted having yet another affair with a selfish, kinky Westminster “slob” — as well as Sir John — could only laugh. You could almost hear the glint in her eye.

“You don’t know anything about what I’ve experienced.”

The mind boggles.

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