Ouch.

I’m racing at breakneck speed through Alastair Campbell’s The Blair Years in time for my deadline for the Times book review section this Saturday. As the words fly by, my eye lights momentarily on something so jaw-clenchingly awful that I skid to a halt and re-read to see if I misread.

But there it is. “Sunday, January 6 [2002]. Gordon’s baby was clearly dying. TB and CB [Tony and Cherie Blair] were both genuinely upset.” “Genuinely.” A word you really hoped nobody would have thought necessary. A whole world of cynicism and spite, unwittingly encapsulated in one simple, subliminal, choice of adverb.