DON’T FEAR THE REAPER

PETER BENJAMIN MANDELSON (pictured left) otherwise known, among other designations, as Baron the Lord Mandelson, or sometimes the Prince of Darkness, has apparently put the journalistic cat among the political pigeons by using “the C-word” when referring to the decent chaps who work at The Sun newspaper. When I heard this reported on the more giggly TV channels I was at a loss to discover what possible word beginning with the letter C might be offensive to British journalists, as no doubt they have been called everything under the sun (no pun intended) before reaching the dizzy heights of working for the scruffiest, most uncouth bunch of foul-mouthed press “barons” one could ever imagine.

THUS, IN THIS BARON VS BARON contest, we the outsiders had to stretch our vocabulary imagination to come up with an explanation for such mutual ill-feeling. The Princeps Tenebrarum himself was not of a great deal of help when he told us that he called them “chumps”. “I said, ‘You silly chumps’”, he claimed yesterday to Adam Boulton, who had himself survived a bit of an insulting from Gordon Brown, who is also feeling like he is standing in the valley of the shadow of death at the moment.

BUT ARISTOCRATIC MANDELSON SHOULD NOT be involved in, or at least not be caught being involved in, using the language of the gutter and of the lower classes. Although he was obviously upset by the fact that The Sun newspaper had just called time on the Labour government and had announced his political death as certainly as if it were hoisting the scythe above his delicate head, he should not bring into play language he must surely have picked up from his boyfriend Reinaldo or the Italian ruffians with whom he consorts in the summer vacation.