LUCKY Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat cabinet minister, who seems sure to be pushed out of the newspaper headlines (for a short while at least) by the startling allegation that a footballer may have had an affair with a pretty girl, news which will dominate tomorrow's front pages after the player's naming in parliament (not a busy day at Westminster, then).

Unlucky Mr Huhne, whose own colleagues are sounding ever less robust in standing up for him, amidst continuing allegations that he asked his then wife to take speeding penalty points for him after he motored past a speed camera too fast, somewhere near Stansted airport in Essex.

Can the energy secretary keep his job? Most speculation, to date, has centred on the role of his ex-wife, who does seem quite keen to see his political goose cooked. Agonisingly for Mr Huhne, who denies the allegations, his friends told Sunday newspapers that he cannot recall his exact movements at the time of the supposed traffic offence in 2003. Only a miracle can save him, some at Westminster are now saying, without much confidence.

But in fact there is precedent for just such a miracle, I was reminded today while browsing The Economist's extensive collection of political memoirs, in search of historical context for the current debate on privacy. The precedent dates back to 1972, when a booming-voiced, handlebar-moustachioed, hard-right celebrity MP, Sir Gerald Nabarro, was fined £250 and banned from driving for two years at Winchester Crown Court, for what the judge summarised as hazardous driving inspired by "a determination to get past a queue of slower vehicles".

The outlook for Sir Gerald, a Conservative backbencher, frequent radio and television guest and self-made packaging tycoon, seemed bleak. Witnesses described being forced off the road by a high-powered Daimler bearing the licence plate NAB 1, as it roared around a roundabout in Hampshire the wrong way to escape heavy traffic. A familiar, moustachioed face was visible behind the steering wheel, they testified.

Yet as recorded in "A Bag of Boiled Sweets", a memoir by Sir Julian Critchley (a witty, leftish Conservative MP whose leftish wit at the expense of Margaret Thatcher ensured him a long career on the back benches), Nabarro had an ace up his sleeve. He announced that he had in fact been asleep in the passenger seat, and the car was being driven by his secretary Mrs Margaret Mason. Mrs Mason gave evidence that she had indeed been at the wheel, and that she recalled no untoward driving incidents. As Sir Julian then recalls:

Nabarro, who happened to be the chairman of the St Christopher's Motorists' Association—which provided chauffeur-driven cars for banned drivers—went on the radio after the trial asking for other witnesses to come forward. Several did so, and the Court of Appeal, in what was said to be a unique case involving a motoring offence, ordered a retrial. The appeal, which was not heard until October 1972, partly because Nabarro had been sick, acquitted him.

The case should perhaps give Mr Huhne some hope. All the energy secretary has to do is take to the airwaves and test his popularity with the wider electorate, appealing, Nabarro-like, for anyone with information that might help clear up this muddle.