Just Like The Girl From Dr. No

Q: How many members of the government does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Two. Gordon Brown to change the light bulb and Peter Mandelson to explain that the bulb hasn't been changed.

Sordel is something of a fan of The (Formerly) Red Baron. In the past, government apologists have always adopted a fixed and ingratiating smile: the physical memory of something passing for charm. Kenneth Baker always had that smile. Ed Balls and his Stepford wife have that smile.

Baron M. does not have that smile.

He conveys to all watching that it is his painful duty to tolerate the stupid questions put to him and then (with an air of high moral seriousness somewhat inappropriate to a man hawking rotten fish) to set the interviewer right on a few points. Like a lidless headmaster exhausted by the folly of his charges his body language indicates that patience is at an end but rectitude in plentiful supply. The man is unflagging, indomitable: like the shapeshifting terminator and just as Protean.

We are only just getting started on his virtues, however, for Baron M. is also the consummate survivor of British politics. If there is a global nuclear war the only things left alive will be the cockroaches and him, but the cockroaches will lack the capacity to celebrate their victory. When Baron M. goes home at the end of the day there must be some fleeting moment (perhaps shortly before, perhaps shortly after turning off the light) when he indulges in a stiff but passionate dance of victory. One can imagine him silhouetted against a window frame, gyrating in unholy exaltation at the thought of his perennial return to power.

Surely every jilted lover has dreamt of the moment when his or her lover would come crawling back for that moment of jubilant closure. Is there a line in Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" that would disqualify it as Baron M. personal anthem? Yet when The (F.) R. B. walked in and found Gordon with that sad look upon his face, he neither crumbled nor lay down & died ... nor declared that he was saving all his lovin' for someone who's lovin' him. The love of Baron M. is boundless, and extends even to a stricken foe.

He walked on the water while the sharks were coming for Brown.

So how can one not admire Baron M.? Here is a man who - given a sow's ear - attempts to make a silk purse: a man who never encounters excrement without having a can of Mr. Sheen at the ready. His attitude is Can Do. His personal motto is The Difficult We Do Right Now, Winning The Election May Take A Little Time.

What's not to like?