Baron von Mandelstein

The BBC's gruesome twosome of Peston and Robinson were positively bursting with glee this morning when breaking the news that George Osborne had been shopped by his alleged "friend" the hedge fund operator and banking dynasty scion, Nat Rothschild, over the matter of not managing to get a party donation from the richest bloke in Russia whom he bumped into on Corfu, apparently at Rothchild's invitation.

Also present at the scene of this private event was the lovely Baron Von Mandelstein, who according to gorgeous George was sharing some home truths about Gordon Brown, some weeks before Broon let him in from the cold.

So how come The Red Baron was rehabilitated and offered a peerage and a cabinet seat by the very same Gordon Brown to the amazement of just about anyone with a pulse? Surely not because he suggested he might be able to launch an Exocet at the Tory number two, with the assistance of his excitable chums at the BBC? Of course not. Perish the thought.

The Daily Mail reports that Rothchild, a reformed wild child, once pushed a portable toilet down a steep hill - with a friend still inside! It seems he is now trying to metaphorically do the same again; but why would Rothschild want to be part of this circus - what is in it for him? And how come controversy always seems to stick to the Red Baron like the Brown stuff to an ermine cloak?