Mandelson enjoys the high life in Moscow

It seems nothing will stop Peter Mandelson enjoying the high life. Though the storm surrounding his time aboard a yacht belonging to Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska has not yet blown over, the newly ennobled Business Secretary is staying in a £5,500-a-night suite during his current trip to Moscow.

Lord Mandelson, in town with a trade delegation from Britain, is spending four days in the suite at the Baltschug Kempinski Hotel. Called the Linley Suite after the Queen's nephew Lord Linley who designed it, the suite features two bedrooms and a chandelier-lit Italian marble bathroom. According to a spokesman for his lordship, the taxpayer is not meeting the costs of all this extravagance. Mandelson is paying for the room itself - but at the rate of £860 a night. The Baltschug Kempinski Hotel, no doubt mindful of its guest's high expectations after his jaunt on the Brussels gravy-train, chose to upgrade the room at no extra cost.

The captains of industry with whom Mandelson travelled to Moscow had no such luck. They are slumming it in £300-a-night accommodation at the Golden Ring Hotel down the road.