The drama has been adapted for Netflix by David E Kelley, who brought us Big Little Lies and The Undoing, and given a glossy upgrade. In the book, the Whitehouses lived in North Kensington, the West London enclave that was home to the Camerons and the Goves; on screen, they live an opulent lifestyle in Mayfair. With the possible exception of Samantha Cameron, there have been no Tory wives who look quite so beautifully turned out as Sienna Miller does here. Rupert Friend is better-looking than politicians of any stripe.

“There is an extent to which the Netflix series has maxed everything up,” says Vaughan. “Part of it is that we want to watch beautiful-looking people. But I was really clear that James had to be lovely-looking, he had to have that charisma and he had to be somebody that young.” That was crucial to the rape case, which is a he-said-she-said scenario: “I was really struck researching it when [someone said], ‘We want to believe a good-looking, middle-class, professional man.’ We do make so many judgments on how somebody looks, and we do give them the benefit of the doubt.”

Standing by your man is also a Tory trait, she thinks. The wife of David Warburton, the Conservative MP recently suspended following allegations that he sexually assaulted women and took cocaine, is said to be giving him her support. Matt Hancock’s wife has maintained a dignified silence despite being deserted in very public circumstances. “It does seem to be a Tory thing, doesn’t it?” says Vaughan. She contrasts these women with Margaret Cook, who wrote an excoriating memoir about her philandering husband and then Foreign Secretary, Robin.

While some parts of the Netflix show deploy what Vaughan tactfully describes as “dramatic licence” – reporters don’t really mob the accused outside their home in the midst of a court case, nor do lobby journalists chase MPs’ wives through the corridors of Westminster – she insists that the courtroom scenes are bang on. “I think anyone watching it involved in the law would think, ‘Yeah, you’ve absolutely nailed that.’”

The ending, though, which suggests that these entitled politicians may get their comeuppance and the Government will fall? That, says, Vaughan, is “a bit of wishful thinking”.