There’s was so much to loathe and laugh at in Peter Mandelson’s contribution to Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘birthday book’ (which inadvertently has turned into more of a ‘burn book’). But the words ‘yum yum’ were, for me, in a league of their own. Whatever they were referring to – it could have been the peachy posterior of a pool-boy or a particularly perfect profiterole – they identified Mandelson as a practitioner of verbal infantilisation. For this alone, he deserved to be sent packing.

I spent five months in hospital during last winter and spring, and though the nursing staff were generally excellent, we were oft spoken to like children in preschool. I was frequently put in mind of the old Flanders and Swann song, the reprise of which runs ‘Pee, po, belly, bum, drawers!’, except on the wards i

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