‘You can’t trust these septics’ growled The Ghost of John Prescott as he shadow-boxed his way across the junior executive suite of the Washington Ritz Carlton. ‘They can’t even hang on to simple vowels - mold, color, aluminum (he snorts derisively) - and we’re meant to believe they can find a path through the woods of diplomacy. Yeah right’.

Peter Mandelson arched an eyebrow and in so doing consigned this apparition to oblivion. Prescott had been a fine member of the old guard - handy in a pub brawl, maybe, but no match for the vipers and wraiths of the international political world of today.

Mandy was the man for this moment. His quicksilver tongue and arch cadences were expressly designed to bamboozle the oligarchs, tech-bros and botox addicts who comprised the seething world inside the Beltway.

Later that morning as his executive Uber sped through the streets, Mandelson scanned the acronyms in his phone contacts - DJT, JDV, MTG. Maybe that last was less desirable but he basked in his closeness to true power. He had the confidence of the British Government to seal a deal and he had every intention of doing so.

In the West Wing things took a drastic left turn. Or rather he was guided via a left turn away from the freshly-gilded oval office and hustled into an anteroom where Vance waited. In the background Hegseth could be seen chewing on what looked alarmingly like a human arm. Vance got straight to the point. ‘Daddy isn’t pleased. He’s never heard of Hartlepool and he doesn’t care for your government’s offer of shares in British Telecom - they’re not even American goddamit - and an Aston Martin Vantage, one careful owner, low mileage, unused ashtray. Even though you are wearing a suit, to all intents and purposes you are naked. We are to deliver you to the Department of Homeland Security and wish to have nothing more to do with you.’ So saying, he turned on his elevator heel and, casting a grimace at the slavering Hegseth, indicating he should follow (at a distance) - left the room.

As the sun set forlornly over the Potomac, Mandelson found himself in a windowless room with a quartet of burly masked men who stared impassively as he entreated them that there had been some kind of mistake. Whisked into the hold of a military cargo plane headed for places unknown, he realised he had failed. He was no ambassador, just a failed salesman of soiled goods of dubious provenance, a broken fence.