Gerald Howarth MP and David Leigh of The Guardian have a full and frank exchange at the book launch

If American talk show host Jerry Springer had stumbled into the normally-hallowed surroundings of the Jubilee room in the House of Commons on Monday he would have felt right at home.

Emotions were at boiling point, abuse was flying around like shrapnel and it appeared the entire proceedings were about to degenerate into an ugly bar room brawl.

But this was not the usual explosive Springer mixture of trailer park "victims" and desperate social inadequates being wound up to breaking point.

This was a press conference to mark the launch of a new book which claims disgraced ex-Tory MP Neil Hamilton was the victim of a conspiracy by The Guardian newspaper and Harrods' boss Mohamed al-Fayed.

Before the last election, Mr Hamilton was accused of accepting brown envelopes stuffed with cash from Mr Fayed in return for asking Commons questions on his behalf.

He came to epitomise the sleaze which wracked the last Tory administration in the run up to the poll and which contributed to its humiliating defeat.

He lost his Tatton seat to the man in the white suit, Martin Bell, and has become a pariah in his own party.

But freelance reporter Jonathan Boyd Hunt has now produced a 300 page book, Trial by Conspiracy, to back up Mr Hamilton's claim that he is innocent of any corruption.

The book claims to be "the story of how a group of Britain's most senior journalists conspired to destroy the lives of one man and his wife and helped bring down a government in the process."

And the press conference to launch the book got off to an unexceptional start.

There were claims from the platform - which included Mr Hamilton, his friend and Tory MP Gerald Howarth, Mr Hunt, and Baroness Turner - that the newspaper had falsified documents and, along with Mr Fayed, had lied to the Downey Inquiry into the sleaze allegations.

None of it was particularly new and there was a marked lack of enthusiasm amongst the gathered media.

But, as Mr Hamilton and Mr Hunt continued to make their allegations, things suddenly began to get out of hand.

First a rather excited Guardian reporter started accusing the two of libelling him, then another Guardian reporter started attacking the author over his ignorance of the newspaper's computer system.

Then yet another Guardian journalist started putting in his two pen'oth.

As the rest of the media watched on bemused, the entire press conference turned into a slanging match between the two sides - each accusing the other of any number of atrocities.

At one stage it appeared the platform was outnumbered by the Guardian journalists, by now at least four strong and apparently growing in number by the minute.

But then a group of Hamilton supporters, led by his formidable wife Christine, led a counter attack from the back of the room.

If this had been Jerry Springer, the bouncers would have been leaping to their feet, ready to haul the two sides off each other.

The transformation from serious press conference to prime-time, shock TV was almost complete.

Mr Springer would probably have titled it "they lied to destroy my life_.."