Downing's arrest was yet another damaging episode in what has become a traumatic season for Liverpool.

A damaging episode was then made more embarrassing by Booker chairman Jonathan Taylor going off message in Sydney, Australia.

Also honoured in the New Year's Homours List - Monica Drinkwater - the woman who helped steer the Conservative Party through one of its most damaging episodes in recent years.

The potentially damaging episodes of the senator's past - his involvement in the Keating Five affair, the reports of his angry outbursts - have been widely reported.

But political analysts say it is far from clear that the episode, however damaging, will cost Mr. Street the election and hand victory to his Republican opponent, Sam Katz.

Other damaging episodes occurred on Ms. Chung's news magazine "Eye to Eye," which was struggling to survive (and now apparently won't).

"We will look back on this as having been a damaging episode for the criminal justice system," he said.

But his reputation in Britain has been battered by a series of damaging episodes.

In the most damaging episode since Ed Balls became Schools Secretary, as many as a quarter of the 1.2m pupils aged 11 and 14 sitting exams failed to get marks on time.

The original decision and the reversal have become the most politically damaging episode of Mrs. Mofford's 20 months in office and threaten Democrats' chances of retaining the Governor's seat in the 1990 elections.