The furore that erupted over Oleg Deripaska’s non-donation to the Conservative Party and George Osborne’s supposed role in it has now died – and the story has moved back to focus on Mandelson.

Why? Because the Electoral Commission has said that no rules have been broken and nothing wrong has been done so, and here I paraphrase, “STFU”.

And so more questions are being asked of Mandelson after he has already admitted that he has lied to us about his relationship with the Russian billionaire who he has had to deny doing favours for. Even though he met him and then removed the EU tariff on his company, saving Depriaska tens of millions of pounds.

Most ironically, this has happened just as Mandelson is due to jet off to Moscow.

Peter Mandelson had a good start after his return to the Cabinet with being able to get George Osborne in trouble, but since that has now be dismissed as rubbish the rebound has been more burtal than the original accusations were.

It seems that Mandelson’s spin doctoring just doesn’t cut it any more. It was effective a decade ago, but not any more. Politics and the media have moved on, and Mandelson hasn’t.

His dark arts are out of date.