It will not wait on events, and there will be no escape from its justice. After the traumatic events of 11 September, the United States is in no mood to mess around. He evoked an “axis of evil” consisting of Iraq, Iran and North Korea. But many outside America are likely to find them distinctly disturbing.As always on such occasions, the style counted at least as much as the substance Mr Bush was blunt and unmistakably unilateralist. Buoyed by military success and his unprecedented personal popularity, the President used America’s annual political setpiece to enunciate a “Bush Doctrine” to deal with terrorists and with states that seek weapons of mass destruction His forthright views will play well at home.

State of the Union addresses are invariably upbeat and assertive affairs, and the first to be delivered by George Bush was no exception. He should stand down as chairman and leave undrawn his PCC salary (£156,000 per year), at least until the air is cleared.. He cannot credibly adjudicate on newspapers that are criticising his conduct. We hope that the account he gives will be a full one, and that he will tell the investigators whether he was ever asked by Enron to use his contacts to undertake any lobbying, formal or informal, of the British government, especially when Enron was faced with a moratorium imposed by the Labour government on new gas-fuelled power stations, a move that was very bad for Enron’s business.Lord Wakeham may prove persuasive on these points, but in the meantime it is inappropriate for him to continue to occupy such a sensitive position as chairman of the PCC. It is easy to see why some might think that Lord Wakeham’s relationship with Enron has been rather too cosy.No doubt Lord Wakeham is already composing an elegant defence of his dealings with Enron.

Especially given that, when he was Secretary of State for Energy between 1989 and 1992 and in charge of privatising the electricity industry, he gave Enron its first £700m contract to build Britain’s biggest private gas-fuelled power station. This may have been within the letter of the relevant guidelines, but we would be interested to hear the noble lord’s views on whether he thought he was setting the best possible example when he moved so rapidly from cabinet room to boardroom. Whether that will prove sufficient reward for appearing before an angry US Senate committee remains to be seen, but Lord Wakeham certainly has some important questions to answer.The first might be why he took a position with Enron in 1994, straight after resigning from the Cabinet and a mere four years after he ceased to be Secretary of State for Energy. For these duties, his director’s emoluments amounted to some £80,000 per annum. The former Conservative cabinet minister and current chairman of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) will have a good deal of explaining to do when he eventually appears before the US congressional investigators to give evidence on the collapse of Enron.Lord Wakeham did, after all, serve as a non-executive director of Enron, and he sat on the company’s audit and compliance committee.

Even for as skilful an operator as Lord Wakeham, this may prove a tricky corner to escape from. Another daughter, Peta, a theatre company manager, later said: “My parents were fairly volatile but their rows and drinking were blown out of all proportion.”Anthony Hayward. In the same year, the couple’s son Alan and younger daughter Lissa told a newspaper that they had suffered domestic violence at the hands of their parents. Johns revealed that the first court case had brought him back together with his actress wife Nanette Ryder – the daughter of another veteran actor, Morris Parsons, who played Wilf Harvey in Crossroads – after they had split up.But in 1988 she had Johns arrested for assault, although she dropped the charge a day later. His son Alan was jailed for six months in 1983 for smuggling morphine; and six years later served another drug-related jail term.