Age: 43.

Appearance: Well, that’s the thing.

What is? Look, Bobby Jindal is the Republican governor of Louisiana and a rising star of the party, tipped for a presidential run next year.

Right. His real first name is Piyush, but he’s always known as “Bobby”, a nickname he picked up as a child because he identified with the youngest boy in the Brady Bunch.

Piyush? That’s an unusual name. Not in Hindu families. Jindal’s parents emigrated from India a few months before he was born.

A Hindu governor of Louisiana! That must be a first? Well it would be, but Jindal converted to Catholicism as a young man. He is implacably opposed to abortion and stem cell research, and in favour of using public money to teach children “other theories” besides evolution.

Hey @CenLamar-that's not the official portrait. Constituent loaned it.This 1's official. Thx 4 ur race-baiting tweet pic.twitter.com/wx2SBY3ZBQ — Kyle Plotkin (@kjplotkin) February 4, 2015

Ah, yes. Like the theory that everything in the Bible is true, including the stuff that isn’t true, the stuff that can’t be true because it contradicts itself, and the stuff that was mistranslated anyway? Theories such as that one, yes.

So what’s wrong with his appearance? Nothing. He’s a rather weedy but otherwise perfectly OK-looking man. It’s just that there’s a portrait of him in his office that doesn’t look like him at all.

Oh well, that often happens. Getting someone’s likeness is one of the hardest things in painting. Yes, but getting the skin colour isn’t, and this painter sees Jindal as a rather pale caucasian.

Now wait a minute. Are you implying that just because he’s changed his name from Piyush to Bobby, joined the Republican party, converted from Hinduism to Christianity, and got a portrait of himself with pale skin that he’s trying to be white? Certainly not! The portrait was painted by a constituent, so maybe he’s just being nice by keeping it.

Maybe. Although he is, erm, a fan of immigrants who integrate. Only last month he was in London warning about Muslim “no-go zones”.

Where? He wouldn’t say. And there aren’t any. But he insisted he was telling the truth for the US, too. “You have people that want to come to our country but not adopt our values,” he told CNN.

You can’t say that about ol’ Bobby now, can you? No, indeed.

Do say: “It’s important to be proud of your roots …”

Don’t say: “… in the middle ages.”