“Our intercontinental ballistic missiles are on standby?.?.?.?If we push the button, they will blast off and their barrage will turn Washington, the stronghold of American imperialists and the nest of evil?.?.?.?into a sea of fire.”

That is the kind of rhetoric that you might expect from a Dr Evil figure in a Hollywood film. Unfortunately, that threat to incinerate Washington was issued, just last week, by a real person, in a real country, with real nuclear weapons.

The chilling statement by Kang Pyo-yong, North Korea’s deputy defence minister, brought to mind President George W. Bush’s famous pledge that “the United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons”. Mr Bush’s “axis of evil” speech in 2002 has been widely denounced as the apogee of idiocy – leading to a misbegotten war in Iraq. But, in the light of North Korea’s threat, Mr Bush’s concerns seem rather prescient.