James Baker will have heard many views as he prepares his much awaited report on Iraq. But he is unlikely to have heard anything as strikingly original as the suggestions offered to him by Ali G when Mr Baker gave the comedian an interview a couple of years ago.

The self-styled spokesman for youth suggested to Mr Baker that it might be problematic that Iran and Iraq had such similar names. Wasn’t there a real danger, he asked, that an order might be issued to an American pilot and “the geezer don’t hear it properly and bomb Iran not Iraq”? “No danger,” replied the former secretary of state evenly.