So who WERE the two Tory ministers who had gay flings with Christopher Hitchens at Oxford?

Once in a while we think about removing "Gossip" from the list of subjects we cover here at 3QD from our banner. But then we just post something like this and move on.

Geofferey Levy in The Daily Mail:

Alpha minds in and around Westminster that normally grapple with issues such as the forthcoming election, the sinking pound and the war in Afghanistan, were turned this week towards a ticklish and wholly unexpected political mystery.

Which two ministers of Margaret Thatcher's government had gay relations with the writer Christopher Hitchens while at Oxford?

Since Hitchens's extraordinary claim emerged this week, the louche figure, now 60, who has been married twice, has fended off all requests for further information.

After all  -  even for a clever polemicist who takes his work very seriously  -  such a tantalising, if frivolous kiss-and-tell is bound to sell extra copies of his memoir Hitch-22 when it is published in the summer.

But those who knew 'Hitch' in his Balliol College years, between 1967 and 1970, when he read Politics, Philosophy and Economics while simultaneously running amok as a rabid Trotskyist (he got a third-class degree, incidentally), have little doubt his claims are true.

For although he has always enjoyed a reputation as a womaniser, at Oxford Hitchens was known to be bisexual.

More here.