He has written nostalgically of colonialism in Africa. “The continent may be a blot, but it is not a blot upon our conscience,” he once wrote in a column in the Spectator. “The problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more.”

He apologised in 2008 for a 2002 column entitled “If Blair’s so good at running the Congo, let him stay there” in which he referred to “flag-waving piccaninnies” and wrote of Tony Blair’s arrival: “No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird.”

. . . wow.