Once is unfortunate. Twice is clearly careless. But there are few words available for a family newspaper to describe hiring Peter Mandelson thrice, only for him to become mired in yet another scandal of career-ending proportions.

Rarely has the Labour party been so united as it is now in rage. Once again, the Prince of Darkness is dragging everyone through the mud, thanks to his moth-like attraction to wealth and power. Once again, awkward questions are being asked about his integrity, or what he disclosed and when. The only surprise is that this time it unravelled so fast: just seven months from resurrection to disgrace.

Though there is no good time to lose our ambassador to Washington over his friendship with a convicted paedophile, this one is biblically bad: days after losing Angela Rayner, in the middle of a deputy leadership contest that is being viewed as a power struggle between Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham, ahead of a state visit by a US president with his own embarrassing connections to Epstein.

Yet this sacking couldn’t wait. Mandelson might have survived Monday’s publication of a gushing birthday tribute to his “best pal”, written before Epstein’s conviction for soliciting prostitution from minors. But the later emails that surfaced on Wednesday, fondly urging his now disgraced friend to fight for early release and promising that “your friends stay with you and........

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