The statement had been workshopped to within an inch of its life. Sitting across from the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, Peter Mandelson folded his hands across each other and intoned: “I want to apologise to those women for a system that refused to hear their voices and did not give them the protection they were entitled to expect.”

The interview, aired on Sunday, was the first occasion that Lord Mandelson, one of the triumvirate who ruled New Labour in the 1990s, had publicly addressed his friendship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein since it cost him his more recent role as Ambassador to the US. Kuenssberg attempted to interject – “will you apologise for your association with him after his conviction?” – but the Labour Party’s most famous spin doctor had memorised his script and would not be thrown off course.

Mandy went on: “That system gave him protection and not them.” It was like watching a robotic Pinocchio, although we couldn’t actually see this wooden boy’s nose grow longer. His breathing was slow and steady. “If I had known, if I was in any way complicit or culpable, of course I would apologise for it, but I was not culpable. I was not knowledgeable of what he was doing. And I regret, and will regret, to my dying day, the fact that powerless women, women who are denied a voice, were not given........

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