Name: Peter Mandelson.

Age: Ageless. Older than time, some say.

Appearance: Sulphurous.

How is the Dark Lord? Feels as if we haven’t heard from him for aaaaages. Well, he’s back, and he’s better – which is to say worse – than ever!

Hurrah! What has he done? Written an impassioned pro-EU treatise? His autobiography? A book about the health benefits of his diet of live mice? No – a letter to Vladimir Putin.

Really? Gosh, I didn’t know they were friends. What is there to draw Mandy to a shadowy, cynical, illegal-war-of-aggression-starting celebrator of hideous past regimes? It’s a mystery.

What was the letter about? It asked the Russian president to help ensure fairness in a legal dispute over there involving Sistema, a company of which Lord Mandelson was then a non-executive director on a salary of £200,000, and in which he still owns shares.

To think that people sneer at payments made to politicians for nebulous advice to corporations! When in return they get gold such as: “Let’s ask Vlad for fairness! Vlad is all about fairness!” You can’t put a price on that, for sure.

Did our Pete enclose a picture of him reclining in his Eames chair? Putin seems to endorse these shows of strength. History does not record.

This must be a tricky one for Jeremy Corbyn. Appeasing unsavoury foreign regimes – tick. Sucking up to Britain’s enemies – yay! Making nice with ex-KGB members – get back to you on that. Making scads of money – boo! He is due to deliver a beautifully finessed response six weeks from now.

Of course, the former trade secretary was a member of the Young Communist League in his youth. Yes. The man who proclaimed in 1998 that the Labour party was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich” has been on quite a journey.

You know, to be fair, he did finish that with “as long as they pay their taxes”. Oh my God! He is a communist after all!

I have to say, I don’t think it really took. I guess he is living the Blairite dream. A chicken in every pot, a well-paid consultancy in every portfolio. Good for him. Good for him.

Do say: “Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we hang them.”

Don’t say: Silkily, “And we’ll get a jolly good price for it, too!”