That notorious right-wing lunatic Tom Hanks is in trouble again. What now? It seems that the Daily Caller website, a conservative organ, has dragged up an ancient video of Hanks, a longtime huggy liberal, sharing a stage with a man dressed in blackface.

Hanks found himself in this compromising position at a charity event for his child’s school in 2004. The offender prankster, dressed in afro-wig and boot-polish, turns out to have been an investment banker named James Montgomery. While he frolics in witless fashion, former Eagle Glenn Frey (this is some school) comments that “This is as close to diversity as we’ll get at St Matthew’s”.

It is pretty dodgy stuff, but, given Mr Hanks’s record, one can only assume he was an entirely unwitting accomplice.

The actor has confirmed that the costume was “hideously offensive . . . What is usually a night of food and drink for a good cause was, regrettably, marred by an appalling few moments.”

The apology has not dissuaded various right-wing groups from demanding that Barack Obama remove Hanks’s voice from a film promoting the president’s re-election. Unhappily for the red-meat brigade, Hanks has no upcoming films that they can boycott.