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The Epstein-Mandelson scandal has escalated to GUBU level. GUBU, which stands for “grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre, unprecedented”, is an acronym coined by the Irish writer Conor Cruise O’Brien to describe a scandal so huge and astonishing as to exhibit all of these qualities.

He was paraphrasing the words used by then Irish Taoiseach Charles Haughey in 1982 to describe a scandal in which the police manhunt for a double murderer, Malcolm MacArthur, discovered him living in the Dublin flat of the former Irish attorney general Patrick Connolly. O’Brien said that GUBU summed up the chaotic and scandal-ridden nature of Haughey’s administration.

Sir Keir Starmer’s government has now likewise entered, and may not long survive, its GUBU phase. The Prime Minister is claiming that, with all the resources of the British state and security services behind him – as well as damning evidence already on the public record – he still managed to believe Peter Mandelson’s assertion that he was no more than a casual friend of Epstein.

At best, Starmer is admitting to a stratospheric level of naivety and plain ignorance in letting himself be suckered by Mandelson. Suggesting he was misadvised by his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, gets neither of them off the hook, as Mandelson’s past sackings and fondness for dodgy billionaires were well known.

Yet the membership rules of the GUBU club or alliance of scandal-hit governments are strict. Not all administrations rotted by corruption or notorious for their toleration of sexual predators gain automatic admission. The Starmer government must stand in line along with other tainted applicants, none of whom smell too good.

Despite the strong international competition, I am fairly confident that Starmer and his associates will not be rebuffed. Rivals may score higher on raw corruption and cash-on-the-table bribery, but the judges will be impressed by the hypocrisy of expressing sob-in-the-throat sympathy for children raped by Epstein – which is what the sexual abuse of minors means – while ignoring evidence that Mandelson was staying in Epstein’s flat in Manhattan when the paedophile billionaire was in jail for this offence.

Defenders of Starmer might argue that the sums Mandelson allegedly received, according to the Epstein files, are dwarfed by the money made by the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) procurement profiteers during the Covid-19 pandemic. Partygate leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, but the wrongdoing was petty – though typical of a shady and dysfunctional government.

Yet the Epstein-Mandelson scandal outpaces all other UK........

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