Certainly his third Ministerial coming symbolises Gordon Brown's desperation and lack of talent in his ranks. But the real significance of his recall, after two ignominious failures as a Minister, has gone unremarked.

Along with the re-appearance on the fringes of government of that pair of unprincipled spin doctors, Alastair Campbell and Charlie Whelan, Gordon Brown's former Treasury spokesman, Mandelson's return
from Brussels entirely explains why British governance has gone haywire since 1997.

The simple truth is that this lot – and Gordon Brown is as much a party to the New Labour ethos as Tony Blair himself – are ruled by political calculation, never public interest.

They never do anything that is right, proper and necessary – except incidentally – unless it serves their perceived political advantage. As such, they are not a government of, by and for the people, but a narrow self-styled elite as treacherously out for themselves as any Kremlin snakepit.

What is more, they started on May 2, 1997 as they meant to go on – and as they will go on until the British people in 18 months' time savage them for their sordid incompetence. Within a week of coming to office,
Mandelson and Campbell told my former Civil Service colleagues in the Government Information Service (GIS) to pull up their socks, or else. That meant: "To hell with the rules. Do it our way, or go."

Within a year, 25 of the people occupying the top 44 GIS posts, brought up to operate honestly and impartially, had moved on. Some were ruthlessly sacked; others just left.

The failure by the mandarins to stop this unprecedented cull of the top departmental spokesmen meant that our system of governance was politicised from the outset. You were either for this shower or you were against it. Candid advice, which every Minister desperately needs, was no longer welcome.

The Whitehall jungle came to be ruled by political apparatchiks whose concept of the workings of a Parliamentary democracy was as flawed as their innumerable wheezes. Since 1997, we have been living to all intents and purposes in a political dictatorship. In that time – aided by a useless Opposition until David Cameron arrived – we have
learned that nothing works any more and never to believe a word Ministers say.

In my 24 years in the Civil Service, we understood that our function was loyally to carry out the wishes of the Government of the day, while making sure they knew the implications of what they were doing, including the cost in money and staff, and whether, as conceived, their policies could work.

It is inconceivable that any self-respecting mandarin I knew would have allowed this Government to get into the position of releasing even the foulest prisoners early to make room for others because of a lack
of cells.

It is ludicrous to suppose that the Treasury I knew would have permitted Gordon Brown to stack up debt unchallenged – and go on doing so with his recent £1bn-plus initiatives to allegedly help people through the present crisis. Its bosses certainly told Ted Heath that money supply could not go on rising by 26 per cent a year a moment longer.

I cannot believe that the top Civil Service brass has not for years been advising the Government that its energy policy is ruinous and guaranteed to put the lights out. I find it even more difficult to accept that they did not tell Gordon Brown that his recent creation of a new Department for Energy and Climate Change will make blackouts more rather than less likely by blurring the focus on security of supply.

Unfortunately, we do not know precisely how hard, if at all, the modern Civil Service has fought the mad Brown/Mandelson/Campbell/
Whelan culture of government by presentation. But, as professional administrators, they have always known, as we do now, that you
cannot deliver policy objectives
by edict, soundbite, staged announcement or by playing to the gallery. It requires organisation and perseverance.

They must also have pointed out that the Blair/Brown initiative a day culture arrogantly treats taxpayers with utter contempt – as if they are incapable of noticing the expensive, deteriorating shambles around them.

Whatever they have done or not done, the return of Peter the Plotter reinforces this travesty of governance. It will not be third time lucky for us. It symbolises that things can only get worse.