The Blunkett Tapes is riddled with such mawkish delusions, of which the most jaw-dropping has to be the assertion that Tony Blair subsequently returned him to cabinet on the basis that it would be “therapeutic” in getting over the above. In the bad old days someone suffering from depression (as Blunkett claims to have been) might have been encouraged to keep himself busy with some eminently soothing activity, such as basketry or crochet. So inverted is the modern world that solving the pensions crisis becomes a plot device in Blunkett’s emotional recovery.

Not that it is the slightest surprise to find Blair gambling the retirement circumstances of millions to cheer up his buddy. The PM has always seen himself as some kind of therapist to a troubled world, most cheeringly evidenced in his exasperated insistences that people “move on” from Iraq, as though it were a meaningless one-night stand, or could be solved with a televised DNA test.

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