To paraphrase the late great Jerry Lee Lewis "There's a whole lotta hatin' going on."

Those familiar with this column will know that it tends to focus on the murky world of British politics and the cretinous individuals in charge in this country.

However, after three weeks of total immersion in the moral miasma of party conference season that's the last thing it wants to think about for a while.

Especially when there's so much schadenfreude to be indulged in elsewhere.

Call it catharsis, if you will, or the journalistic equivalent of steeping yourself in Dettol.

First up - it cannot have failed to catch your attention that the organ of choice for the hard of thinking, the Daily Heil, has got itself into a spot of bother this week.

It must have seemed like a jolly jape when they dreamt it up - no doubt after quite a few drinks on Greek Street or wherever that type hang out. But its decision to smear Marxist theoretician Ralph Miliband on the eve of the Tory conference backfired quite spectacularly.

Not only did they manage to offend most of the general public - that's par for the course for them - but they accidentally managed to unite, at least superficially, all the party leaders in their disgust at the tactic.

As if that wasn't enough they also did the practically impossible - making Alistair Campbell almost likeable after he went six rounds with the Heil's deputy editor on Newsnight and gave him a sound drubbing.

The Mail of course refused to apologise for branding Miliband "the man who hated Britain."

Well let's look at their "justifications" for this claim.

Basically it comes down - of course - to the fact that first and foremost he was foreign and therefore must despise Britain because he wasn't party to its sense of fair play, decency etc, etc, blah blah.

You know, good old-fashioned British values such as smearing a dead man and supporting the nazis.

Miliband, it foamed, had been critical of "our great schools, the church, the army and even the Sunday papers."

He'd even had a problem with the monarchy and opposed the Falklands war.

Christ, I'm glad they don't read this column or they'd be calling for me to be hanged for treason.

The other alleged article of proof was an excerpt from Miliband's diary when he was a teenager. Which didn't actually say what they claimed in any way shape or form.

The rag gave Ed Miliband a right to reply but then compounded the offence by repeating the slur in full and adding an editorial accusing Ralph Miliband of leaving a "legacy of evil."

Er, I think they'll find that was Hitler, or Thatcher, both of whom they were rather keen on I recall.

And that nice Oswald Mosley chap and his cronies spread nothing but sunshine and light, didn't they?

In fact if anyone in this sordid affair is culpable of spreading a legacy of evil there's only one real contender. This is a rag that exists purely to stir up malice amongst the gullible and fatuous.

Asylum-seekers, gays, foreigners, human rights... yoghurt... almost everything is a source of manufactured fear and hatred.

It's been a week for pompous xenophobes with media empires being hoist by their own petards.

Moving on, while still on the subject of massive cock-ups, there have also been fun and games in the Italian parliament.

There have been few more satisfying sights in recent times than Silvio Berlusconi getting his comeuppance in hilariously humiliating style.

Italian politics is not exactly known for its stability but even by its implosive standards this was quite impressive.

Berlusconi had threatened to bring the government down and by extension the country to its knees by pulling his party's support.

In the event this backfired rather badly.

He was stabbed in the back - and in fact the front - by his former colleagues in a move that was not so much "et tu, Brute" as "sod you Silvio" and forced into a grovelling U-turn.

The teflon tyrant arrived in parliament to be shunned as if he had a bio-hazard sticker on his forehead. Which, considering the amount of botox he's obviously had, might be advisable.

Berlusconi of course is famed for his ability to bounce back with disturbing regularity from scandals that would bury most political careers deeper than nuclear waste.

But what with all the convictions for financial irregularities and consorting with minors, and now a mutiny on a par with HMS Bounty, this time he may just be completely bunga-bungared.