Breaking news! I knew that Baron Mandelson, of Foy in the County of Herefordshire and Hartlepool in the County of Durham, as he is officially called, was grand but, until yesterday, I had no idea just how incredibly important he has become.

For it has been revealed that his new empire is, literally, out of this world.

Mandy had graced the Lords with his presence, post-reshuffle, to explain his giant new department and his ludicrously long list of titles, which puts even the Grand Poobah’s into the shade.

“Can I congratulate the Lord President of the Council and First Secretary of State on your remarkable accumulation of responsibilities, titles and junior ministers, of whom you can boast no fewer than ten, surely a record,” noted Lord Hunt of Wirral, the Tory peer.

“I understand that you have also now added outer space to your portfolio. Your ambition indeed knows no bounds!”

At the words “outer space”, Mandy inclined his head graciously. Oh my God, I thought, before realising that God, if there is a Heaven, is now a mere stakeholder in Mandy’s empire. It seems that the reshuffle was one small step for Mandy, one giant leap for mankind. The aliens have no idea what they are in for.

Mandy was magnanimous in victory. “What we have in this new department is indeed a new phoenix that is going to take flight from the merger of two previously excellent departments,” he said, his voice silky, his hand stroking the dispatch box, “and will be able to extend its reach to outer space and beyond.”

And beyond? Lord Hunt attacked the merging of Mandy’s business empire with the Department for Universities and Skills. “In the business world there is said to be no such thing as mergers, only takeovers. Do you not agree that it’s a shameful and retrograde development that further and higher education have been subsumed in this way, to be judged not worthy even of a single letter in the departmental acronym?”

Piffle, said Mandy, or something like that. He insisted that, as a liberal arts graduate (PPE, St Catherine’s, Oxford), he could be trusted with the future of our universities.

Various peers wobbled up to announce that they had degrees in dead languages or, in the case of one bishop, dead ideas. As always in the Upper House, peers perked up at the word “dead”.

Peers were almost levitating with happiness, not at the merger, of course, but just to have Mandy among them.

Now Lord Hunt sent them into orbit (oops, another Mandy responsibility) with reference to Sir Alan Sugarpuff. “In a country in need of enterprise, when are we going to meet the so-called enterprise czar? When will the sorcerer’s apprentice make his debut?”

At the words “sorcerer’s apprentice”, Mandy threw his head back and barked with laughter.

“Or is he already a falling czar!” cried Lord Hunt, who had the grace to look embarrassed at this appalling pun.

Mandy played along, though, as ever, only for a moment. “I’m sure the sorcerer’s apprentice will be winging his way” (for these words he used his special Prince of Darkness voice, lower and spookier) “towards your lordships’ house in due course.”

Lords and ladies looked ecstatic. (I feared, though, that in the Upper House his catchphrase would have to be “You’re tired”.) Mandy looked even more mysterious. As Buzz Lightyear, that toy of toys, would say: “To infinity and beyond!”

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