Will the Mandelson gamble pay off for Brown?
Fraser Nelson 10:21am
One of the few history lessons I remember from primary school was how in medieval Scotland, condemned men could choose their executioner. I remember looking around and wondering which of my classmates would best finish me off quickly and painlessly. In my News of the World column today, I argue that Gordon Brown has revived this tradition by appointing Peter Mandelson. No more can you say the Labour rebellion is a shiver, looking for a spine to run down and no more will the likes of me moan about a spineless Cabinet. The Prince is back.
As Matt argues in the Sunday Telegraph today, this could all go badly wrong but the Tories should not discount the possibility of it going badly right. I agree, but my money is on it going badly wrong - and for the following reasons.
1. Brown only uses his friends. The Stephen Carter fiasco showed what happens when well-qualified outsiders are sent in to sharpen Brown operation. He doesn’t listen because his inner circle has hardly changed in ten years. He uses Ed Balls, Ed Miliband and the rest as much now as when they were his acolytes at the Treasury – even now that they have their own departments to run. Sure, Damian McBride has been sent to a forward planning operation. But even if he was selling ice cream on Westminster Bridge, Brown would still be calling him up and sending him on covert missions. McBride gave Brown consistently good service, and was moved, I suspect, because Mandy demanded it. Just as Blair couldn’t shake his addiction to Mandy – late night phone calls, texts etc - I’d be surprised if McBride gets to the end of this month (if not the end of the day) without a plaintive phone call from Brown. McBride also has superb media contacts with whom he has established a good working relationship. For as long as he’s in government, he’ll be used again. Mandy has his own contacts. He’ll use them.
2. Bad Blood Remember Brown and Mandy have hardly spoken in the last 20 years. As Campbell said in his diaries, they “really do hate each other”. Forget strategy, theory, aligned interests. To paraphrase Mohammed Ali before the Foreman fight, they’re going to get it on because they don’t get along.
3. Mandy plots. Put him in a nunnery and he’d have a rebellion stoked up by Christmas. Sure, he’s a lightening conductor taller than Brown, a Minister For The Media To Hate Even More. But it won’t be long before he gets tired of Brown, who he’ll regard – rightly – as Labour’s single biggest liability. To paraphrase Chris Patten this time, dogs bark, cats miaow, Mandy plots. It’s the natural order of things.
4. This Blairite narrative is false. Patrick Hennessy has a brilliant write-though in the Sunday Telegraph today, where he says Brown’s logic is that the Blairites won’t come for him if he has an arch-Blaiirte by his side. I can well believe Brown thinks that, but this misunderstands both the Labour Party and the plots. The ones who came for him in the last month or so are not Blairite clones under remote control: they are ordinary, loyal party members who want him gone. Brown’s biggest flaw is his determination to view the world through the lens of factionalism. As I wrote last November, if surrounded by sharks, his instinct is to ask “who sent the sharks?” rather than deal with the problem. The bad news for him is that Blair did not send the sharks. The rebels came because they want him gone. And that’s hardly likely to change because Mandy is back.
5. Mandy won’t change the wider narrative. You can write the script. Economy dives, job losses mount, repossessions do too. Businesses close, Mandy is wheeled out as Minister for Business, starts to point the finger to the mistakes and debt run up in the last ten years. Brown loses Glenrothes next month, Mandy is blamed for not turning things around, he lets it be known Brown’s still using his old people. A new Cold War starts, Brown takes the mother of all kickings in the European elections, The Cabinet concludes “we have to lose Brown to win” and this time they don’t have Miliband playing ring-and-run with The Guardian but a world-class plotter waiting to avenge Blair.
Now perhaps Mandy will get behind Brown and be Cameron’s nightmare and I’ll say this: Brown has made a genuinely bold move. The theory is seductive. But in practise I consider it likely to blow up in Brown’s face.
Whatveer happens it is great for box office, the political equivalent of bringing Nick Cotton back to EastEnders. There is nothing like a good old villain to liven up the panto. However this unfolds, it will be great fun to watch.
Previous
ferg morrissey
October 5th, 2008 10:57am Report this commentbrown must be TOTALLY isolated.surely his closest advisor, balls, would never have gone along with this 'brave' decision?just who did he consult?maybe balls knows brown is a busted flush and has decided that mandy is the one who should wield the knife,sparing the more obvious men in grey suits the grief?as you say,this is great box-office.
Old Hack
October 5th, 2008 10:59am Report this commentUnless nominations have closed, I propose Mandelson fight Glenrothes.
Seriously though, Mandelson is meat for the media pack hunting Brown. Not that they will be thrown off the scent for long.
Brown is still Brown. With all that implies for government.
Thomas
October 5th, 2008 11:27am Report this comment"However this unfolds, it will be great fun to watch."
Yes, we shall all be laughing with tears in our eyes at this comedy of betrayal, cowardice and survival.
Oor Willie
October 5th, 2008 11:30am Report this commentBrown's teeth look really bad in that picture in the NOTW.
Mandy's are immaculate but the fangs have been air-brushed out.
Slim Jim
October 5th, 2008 11:46am Report this commentIf those rumours about Blunkett are true, and with Mandelson's return, this is indeed unique. It's a case of the rats returning to the sinking ship.
Slim Jim
October 5th, 2008 11:52am Report this commentNick Cotton? Surely more like Arthur Fowler, the Dead Person...
AlexS
October 5th, 2008 12:44pm Report this commentOr consider this.
Mandy knows the game is up and nothing he or anyone else might do can save Brown or this government. If Brown is forced to resign, who would want to lead Labour to inevitable defeat? A caretaker leader, if only for a few weeks, is still Prime Minister, would still have those private meetings with the Queen, would still have his portrait on the staircase at Number 10, and would still always be a former Prime Minister.
It would appeal to his vanity.
The little matter of not being a member of the Commons should be easy enough to finesse for a man of Mandy's talents.
Mandy watcher
October 5th, 2008 12:45pm Report this comment"no more will the likes of me moan about a spineless Cabinet. The Prince is back."
Scorpions are invertebrates. They don't have a spine.
Dirty Euro
October 5th, 2008 12:53pm Report this commentThere has been some homophobia and anti semitims toward him. This is wrong.
Bailiff Bait
October 5th, 2008 12:57pm Report this comment"Great fun to watch" ? I'll probably be doing it while the bailiffs are wheeling my clapped-out telly out of the door. I've lost everthting else during the tenure of this bunch of thieves and incompetents.
Bailiff Bait
October 5th, 2008 12:58pm Report this comment"Great fun to watch" ? I'll probably be doing it while the bailiffs are wheeling my clapped-out telly out of the door. I've lost everthting else during the tenure of this bunch of thieves and incompetents.
Short the UK
October 5th, 2008 1:05pm Report this commentWhy are the Tories not hammering New Labour on the two fatal flaws that have brought the UK economy into the Gates fo Hell:
~Gordon Brown: "no more boom & bust." This lead the public to go a hedonic spending spree.
~Buy-to-let: as this trade unwinds it will crater house prices and sap confidence.
America had Fannie & Freddie, we've got Brown and BTL.
Come on Tories get hammering!!!!
Tankus
October 5th, 2008 1:45pm Report this commentall aboard browns electoral kamikaze cabinet, where she stops no one knows..?
More pink than red , and in two years, soon to be dead.
heh... G.O.A.T's ... main topic of conversation down in the brighton bar's...methinks
Does brown want as many Blairites with him as possible , so that when the party self destructs at the next election , he can claim that out of the 13 years of a nulab government , he only led it for 3 , so its all tonys fault ...!
God ..I cant wait for the elections , will there be enough cameras available to cover all those portillo moments ?
.. who needs panto for laughs when we have politics ... best comedy ...EVER
Bet mandleson doesnt last till the elections , be out on a whiffy red top front pager just like the last few times ....
Thank god I've paid my mortgage off, because we are truly doooommmed
mac
October 5th, 2008 1:48pm Report this comment"However this unfolds, it will be great fun to watch."
Fun? All the great offices of state being run by incompetents, has-beens, won't bes, naive wonks, doctrinaire harridans, sycophants and self-servers. I'm not laughing Fraser, and I object to having to pay so much jn so many ways for this brokenbacked circus.
oldtimer
October 5th, 2008 2:13pm Report this commentWill this become known as the Government of all the Talons?
For the rest of us I believe, Fraser, that you now need to mobilise Mandelspeech Watch to set alongside your Brownies Watch.
Like Tony Blair, Mandelson possesses that indispensable verbal skill of making you believe he has said something when he hasn`t. The careful use of shoulds, woulds, wants and likes accompanied by a bewildering array of ifs, buts and sundry other qualifications enables both of them to deny any understanding you, or for that matter anyone else, may have had about what you thought they had said. In short he is a master spinner. I think you will have your work cut out if you take on this necessary task on behalf of us all.
ferg morrissey
October 5th, 2008 3:45pm Report this commenthas anyone noticed that sarah palin IS karen walker from will and grace?
EyeSee
October 5th, 2008 4:30pm Report this commentYour article here says it all. Nothing in this is about dealing with our current crises. Brown has kept his focus on his enduring love, the prime reason he got into politics; his immense belief in his own importance. Mandy's return is a Westminster story. He is adept at causing division, he is unprincipled but he is good with the media who lap up his stories. Labour may look like a party, even a government but in fact that are literally a bunch of incompetent chancers and wasters. Mandelson is of a piece with it all. He knew that lying would win power back for Labour but he doesn't know anything else. He is the classic arrival at the brewery who then looks perplexed.
Susan Hill
October 5th, 2008 5:20pm Report this commentIt is completely Shakespearean. So who is going to be brave enough to take Gordon to one side and tell him to beware the Ides of March ?
Susan Hill
October 5th, 2008 5:22pm Report this comment'There has been some anti semitism toward him. This is wrong.'
Grow up. I hadn`t even clocked that he was Jewish.
I hadn`t even clocked that he was Jewish.
dick the prick
October 5th, 2008 5:46pm Report this commentMandy was wittering about an 'international regulatory system' t'other day. We can't get Euroed but we can get Lisboned. Sure, myopia is useful - but I think there's (Euro rules progress - FSA, BoE, Treasury policy), Lisbon, Nuke power stations, ID cards, quango & public sec enlargement - I would have thought these were dividing lines and 18 months is 3 years for the Tories to a) find, b) detail, c) attend to. I'm more pissed off than worried about personalities.
sjm
October 5th, 2008 6:10pm Report this commentMandelson isn't Jewish - his father was, but married a non-Jew who did not convert.
Judaism goes via the maternal line. Interestingly, if your mother is Jewish but your father isn't but they are married, you are nevertheless classed in Jewish law as a 'bastard'.
Speaking as a Jew, I'd say the term could not be more appropriate in this case.
TGF UKIP
October 5th, 2008 6:36pm Report this commentOn the other hand, though, when it's a case of "it's the economy, stupid" the Tories do have their own massive liability and like it or like it not, Fraser, it's called Osborne.
CS
October 5th, 2008 6:53pm Report this comment***has anyone noticed that sarah palin IS karen walker from will and grace?***
What? You mean the one-joke character who becomes tedious after five minutes?
Lola
October 5th, 2008 7:58pm Report this commentIs there a blairite leader in waiting that mandy would like to see in power. Failing that why not Mandleson himself. He could plot and scheme to get rid of brown and to promote a pliable and voter popular blairite to take Zanu to the next election. Don't forget there are lot of Voters out there who know that if Cameron gets in and does the Right Thing their lifestyles are doomed. And these range from idiot but to letters to benefit dependenters.
Watervole
October 5th, 2008 8:02pm Report this commentMore than anything, it is an indication of how low Brown is prepared to stoop to keep his grasp on power.
Was Mandleson's appointment and accompanying media furore a smokescreen for anything else?
Matt
October 6th, 2008 12:33am Report this commentWhen will it be safe to go out, again?
Who else will be dragged back from Labour's past? Shirley Williams? David Owen? Marcia Matilda Falkender, Baroness Falkender CBE?
Hadrian
October 6th, 2008 1:24am Report this commentI shouldn't mind seeing David Owen back, or even Shirley, God help us at least they had a modicum of honour about them. This present bunch of shysters make one think the lunatics have taken over the asylum right enough....with Nurse Ratchet in the shape of one Mandy the Mad.
That Brown, a son of the Manse, can stoop to the moral gutter to save his own skin by being 'joined at the hip' with this unelected monster only indicates how quickly he's ditched all pretence of a fresh start or rectitude. I think we'll all live to rue the day...Lord have mercy on us all. Maybe Fraser could get into Parliament? 'Lord Nelson', has a certain ring to it!
Fergus Pickering
October 6th, 2008 3:52am Report this commentMandelson says that he isn't Jewish, which he isn't, in the sense that Mauriel Spark and Paul Newman weren't Jewish and I'm not Scots (only half). Anyway, people don't hate and despise him because he's jewish, they hate and despise him because he's Peter Mandelson
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