Labour deputy chairman Tom Watson was left with a little facial egg after tweeting Rupert Murdoch to complain that he had been insulted by Times columnist Hugo Rifkind.

A baffled Rifkind asked for, and got, an apology from the MP, who admitted that he had confused him with fellow Times columnist Giles Coren.

In the Spectator, Rifkind reflected: “Exactly what was it about the Jewish Giles Coren which led Mr Watson to get us mixed up?...It’s terribly puzzling. What could it be that made me and Giles Coren who, as I may have mentioned, is Jewish, so interchangeable in Mr Watson’s mind?”