Prince of the big gay darkness

Last night my Manpanion took me to the movies with Jon Snow and Peter Mandelson. I was close enough to the latter to bite his knees. (We go on the best dates ever.)

A brief explanation of the Mandelson for you lovely non-UK folk (and hi, by the way! Your readership makes me giddy with happiness!): former Labour MP, kicked out of government twice for corruption, now a Baron, of all things; architect of New Labour, known as 'The Prince of Darkness' and, since his ennobling, the 'Dark Lord'; general underworld God King of the last administration and strangely hypnotic evil genius.

Oh, and he's gay.

How awesome is it that I always forget that bit? That it's so rarely mentioned? I don't mean "hooray for the erasure of gay identities"; I don't think of him as straight, I just don't think of his sexuality at all*. Like I never think of Cameron or Brown or Blair as Straight Politicians, Getting Their Rocks Off In An Officially Sanctioned Fashion - because straightness is 'normal' while the big gay is 'other', and also because thinking of David Cameron in flagrante is just frightening.

I have no idea why this is - he's a skilled media manipulator, the ultimate spinner, so maybe he's used his influence to have his actual actions and policies talked about, rather than his love of cock - or maybe he's just such a bizarrely fascinating character that his orientation is quite far down the list of interesting personality quirks. Either way, the fact that he gets to be A Politician rather than A Gay Politician is ace.

* I would be well interested to hear The Gays' views on this - if I'm way off the mark do let me know.

Edit: My extensive team of fact checkers have pointed out that this is actually kind of bollocks - see the "Mandy" nickname and the whole Gay Mafia screeching. I can only say I wasn't paying much attention in 1998, due to being 12. However, I think my argument holds for the later years of Mandelson's reign of doom - my complete lack of awareness could be put forward as evidence supporting that contention (or it could just be ignorance - whatever).