This week

Spun out: Derek Draper

Mandelson's former protege-turned-psychotherapist resigned from his editorship of the LabourList website as a result of the No 10 smear scandal in which leaked emails showed him apparently approving of using the site to spread lies – real lies, not the usual stuff – about the Tories. He thus becomes possibly the first spin doctor in history to prove that not all publicity is good publicity. Except of course for Mandy. And himself, back in 1998 when he was in the middle of all that lobbying-for-cash controversy. Note to Labour's future self: if you're in crisis and you're turning to Draper for help, that's not a solution, that's a symptom.

Election dysfunction: Silvio Berlusconi

So you are a 72-year-old self-made billionaire who is friends with an 18-year-old girl who calls you "papi" and whose birthday, unlike those of your own children, you leap to attend? So you're a prime minister who likes to fill his cabinet with inexperienced but attractive young women? So what? Is that any reason for your wife to start pointing all this out in newspapers, getting you into trouble with cardinals and planting doubts in the minds of your primarily Catholic supporters a month before the European elections? Women! Always so petty. So irrational. So unreasonable.

Capital punishment: Bono

Think of this less as a news round-up and more of a public service announcement. He's written an 850-word poem about Elvis. I know. Just when you thought the world's most humourless, earnest and tax-efficient rock star couldn't get any more endearing. Not only that, but Radio 4 have agreed to broadcast the work, entitled Elvis: American David. Sample lines include: "elvis was not a big talker/elvis was articulate in every other way" and "elvis had a voice that could explain the sexuality of America." Why the writer has eschewed capitals is unclear but it is thought to be primarily because he's bloody Bono.

The poem is to be broadcast on Wednesday. Just in case swine flu wasn't sufficient inducement to start building that bunker.

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