The rise of the Teflon Tory

Shame has no impact on the mediocre white men of Westminster. But oh how they love a comeback tour...

It was 4am and I was utterly, bone-achingly tired.

Bump into the wall on the way to the loo tired.

Can’t formulate a coherent thought, drop back off after a quick wee tired.

And so it surely would have been, except that on the way back to bed, unbidden, there it was. A memory. Or perhaps more accurately, a humiliation. A harmless but stupid thing said, oh, 14 years ago, that appeared in my head from nowhere and made me feel quite queasy.

It’s a nothing story really – a phone call in which I mispronounced the name of a bloke I was hoping would hire me, fell over my words in an attempt at recovery and generally made a bit of a tit of myself. He didn’t hire me, of course – but he did leave the firm shortly after so I never had to see him again. Still, it’s enough to keep me awake, beaming like a lighthouse.