As this the column is being battered out Britain is once more engulfed in that orgy of rapacious capitalism that is Black Friday.

Originating in the US, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving — the traditional festival where our trans-Atlantic cousins celebrate their betrayal of the indigenous population by their pilgrim forefathers.

Of course, they dress it up slightly differently. Smallpox Blanket Saturday or Manifest Destiny Monday don’t have quite the same patriotic ring to them.

Black Friday sees retailers drastically “reduce” their massively overinflated prices for 24 hours to offer “bargains” to the gullible and avaricious.

The day was exported to Britain by those wonderful folk at Amazon in 2010 and has triggered a frenzy of conspicuous consumerism ever since.

Shame they didn’t have the same idea when it came to their taxes.

It has been suggested, probably erroneously, that the event is linked to the dark days of slavery.

Whatever the true origins it certainly is now.

Nothing illustrates the benevolence of the capitalist ethos than thousands of people beating the hell out of each other to get that sweatshop garment or iPod at a knockdown price.

Personally this column prefers to mark Black Monday, Tuesday and Thursday which triggered the Wall Street crash of October 1929.

Recalling all those bankers and financiers brought low — sometimes from about 20 storeys up — by their own avarice and greed can’t help but give you a warm feeling inside.

They certainly have more resonance in this day and age too.

But on to other matters and it appears that pretty much every day this week has been a black one for the Tories.

First up was Taxigate and repeat disgracee David Mellor.

The former Thatcher Cabinet minister was recorded calling his driver a “smart-arsed little git” and a “sweaty, stupid little shit.”

The former MP and barrister was criticised by trade unions after he told the driver to “fuck off” and threatened to embarrass him on his LBC radio show.

The incident occurred after Mellor had attended Buckingham Palace with his partner Lady Cobham, chair of VisitEngland, who had just been awarded a CBE.

He went on to say: “I don’t want to hear from you, shut the fuck up. You’ve been driving a cab for 10 years, I’ve been in the Cabinet, I’m an award-winning broadcaster, I’m a Queen’s counsel. You think that your experiences are anything compared to mine?”

Well, he probably never had to resign due to a sex scandal.

As “Don’t you know who I am?” moments go this was pretty spectacular, even by Tory standards.

It just goes to show, you can take the odious git out of the Cabinet…

Mellor claimed, when challenged on his remarks, that he had been “seriously provoked,” adding: “Once I had lost my temper, which I regret, he then secretly recorded me. I will leave the public to judge his actions.”

They will David, they will.

And speaking of arrogant snobbish bullies getting their comeuppance due to ill-advised comments, it’s not exactly been a great week for former Tory chief whip Andrew Mitchell either.

Mitchell, you will be well aware, came a cropper after he was alleged to have called a Met police officer a “fucking pleb” at the gates of Downing Street two years ago.

Mitchell furiously denied the claim, refused to apologise and received the full backing of David Cameron.

A number of cops were arrested for their alleged role in a plot against Mitchell and it was on the cards he might get away with it. 

Until, that is, he followed in the footsteps of Neil Hamilton and Jonathan Aitken — who you may recall vowed to “cut out the cancer of bent and twisted journalism in our country with the simple sword of truth” and then promptly tripped over and impaled himself on it.

Vowing to clear his name, Mitchell sought to sue the Scum, which first published the story, for damages.

They’ll never learn will they? On Thursday High Court judge, Justice Mitting, found that in all probability Mitchell had used the words in question.

Weighing up the competing claims, the judge said PC Rowland was “not the sort of man who would have had the wit, imagination or inclination to invent on the spur of the moment an account of what a senior politician had said to him in temper.”

Which is pretty much what a lot of us have argued from the start. Being fitted up by the Met is hardly an unheard-of occurrence but their fabrications tend to be more along the lines of: “It’s a fair cop guv, I done the blag” or “He fell down the stairs Sarge.”

Rowland probably didn’t even have the word “pleb” in his vocabulary. It tends to be more commonly deployed on the playing field of Mitchell’s alma mater Rugby School than the streets of London.

Mitchell was ordered to pay interim costs of £300,000, likely to soar to around £3 million.

The irony is that, had he just left it alone and apologised he’d probably be back in government now with all the other toffs and patronising bullies.

Ah, schadenfreude. The gift that keeps on giving.