PRINCE

of Darkness Peter Mandelson, who once mused ‘it may be that the era of pure representative democracy is slowly coming to an end’, tends to pay particular attention to China these days. He is president of the Great Britain China Centre, which has just paid for nine MPs to visit the dictatorship at a cost of up to £3,000-a-head, courtesy of two commercial sponsors. Perhaps Mandy will convince the Chinese to invest in his secretive consultancy, Global Counsel?