What I did not like was his sackcloth-and-ashes routine about the Kennedy deposition.

Why doesn’t he tell the truth? An incompetent and underperforming leader had to go. Why not say it?

Someone whose name has not been mentioned in all this is that of Lord George-Brown.

Brown was Wilson’s Foreign Secretary, and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.

Brown was far worse than Charles Kennedy. He was incapable of remaining sober anywhere. Especially diplomatic banquets.

And his rudeness was legendary.

It was to describe Brown’s behaviour that the press coined the words “tired and emotional”. (”Private Eye” depicted him as Falstaff.)

When Wilson finally sacked Brown, no-one criticised Wilson for his beastliness to a poor, misunderstood alcoholic. In fact, he was lambasted for having Brown in the first place.

The difference between Kennedy and Brown is that Kennedy is a nice man, Brown was not.