Mandy for Prime Minister?

Stepney

Mandy plays a long game. Always has. Always will. He certainly didn't come back to help Brown in his hour of need. The chink in his otherwise awesome political nouse is that he is almost as widely despised by the electorate as Brown. Not a chance.

cuffleyburgers

That really would be a fitting ending to the New Labour freak show.

mitch

Er, you answer your own question: Labout WOULD never choose him.

Who else can choose a Labour leader, if not the party itself?

Austin Barry

Fact: It is thought preferable that Prime Ministers are married men.

Surmise: If Mandelson marries a lady then, yes, he wants to be PM.

Wily Trout

I expect Labour would choose Vlad the Impaler if it meant being able to cling on to power.

Tim J

Except that life peers can't currently renounce their peerages...

Trumpeter Lanfried

Tim J @11.52AM: Easily rectified. No peer could renounce until Lord Stansgate led the way. But it won't happen. The PLP nurses a deep loathing for Mandelson.

George Laird

Dear All

Peter Mandelson for Prime Minister?

With so many people hating him?

You might as well have said, Hazel Blears for Prime Minister since you are either having a laugh or been involved in a serious car accident and reckon your goose is cooked.

In the race to be next Labour leader, the question is not who is the best candidate but who is the least objectionable to the public!

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

Andrew Forbes

Actually, I think he likes his "Prince of Darkness" epithet, and a reputation as Machiavelli for modern times.

I think he's happy to play kingmaker, or even puppeteer. So watch closely the circling of Milburn; not too close to power to be implicated with the blame, not too far to be out of the picture; ideally placed for the triumph of Blairism, after the next election, as the new Tory administration wallows in the worst of the recession, before any recovery is felt.

And Mandleson can then be foreign secretary, like his grandfather, which has, I have read, long been his ambition.

As for the allegation that he's skewered Milliband's ambitions; I suspect worse than Parris; that Mandleson set him up; told him to denounce the phrase "war on terror" in his Indian speech, knowing the storm it would create, and knowing Milliband would be arrogant, stupid and green enough to do it.

Fergus Pickerng

We are not going to have a queer PM. But we did? We had Edward Heath. And back in the nineteenth century we had George Canning. George Canning was a good egg. We are not goingto have THIS queer prme minister. Ah, there you have me.

bob

Well we had a war criminal, we presently have a deranged lunatic and now a petty crook wants the job (It is a criminal offense to lie on a mortgage application).

Things can only get better!

Somehow I don't think he's going to be allowed to get his hands on that job unless it's via a general election, and he'll never win one.

Paul B

I think there is an outside chance that Mandy may, just may, take over from Brown on a "caretaker" basis. If hes going to , he will make move sometime from late spring through to just prior to conference season.If Brown is still in place at conference then he fights the next election. However I can see Mandy plotting, saying that as e the markets have no confidence in Brown, therefore for the good of the country he (Brown) should step down. Mandy will couch this in patriotic terms, wrapping himself in a very fetching Union Jack flag, whilst knifing Brown in back. He then steps with a show great show of reluctance & takes us through to next election, playing the patriotic card all the time. He loses the elction. Whilst "caretaker" PM he may stay in the Lords, and stand down (if its technically possible at present, that can so be fixed) stand for re- election as an MP in the general election. Would I bet on the above happening ? Not unless the bookies gave me very good odds.

Austin Barry

Were Mandy to assume the office he would become the fourth gay PM since the War, but only the first to declare as such. Possibly the only bright aspect of a Mandy Government.

TrevorsDen

"The PLP nurses a deep loathing for Mandelson" - this has to be one of the biggest understatements in the history of politics.

Likewise Brown today made one of the biggest overstatements - namely comparing providing the provision of broadband in the 21st Century with the provision of railways and electricity in the 19th Century. I ask you -- I have to conclude that no one actually listens to Browns claims any more.

I note that alongside the proposal to give broadband to every house (presumably even if it does not have a computer?) is a proposal to ... you guessed it ... to tax it.

Verity

Come on, Austin, who were the other two? Oh! ... wait a minute ...!

strapworld

Sorry, He would be re-elected in Hartlepool. What he did for that town when he was MP was quite simply astonishing.

I lived in Middlesbrough as a lad and often went through West Hartlepool and it was, simply put, the armpit of the North east.

I went back to help Ukip (sorry I have grown up since) in the Hartlepool by election. I was staggered by the transformation.

Most of the people I spoke to when out canvassing, both good and poor area's, were extremely complimentary of Mandleson! So he could go back there (Remember the I am a fighter not a quitter!)

So, that said, I think there is a lot of truth in this story and I believe Mandleson is the only one with the guts to tell Brown to go!

Verity

Strapworld: "I believe Mandleson is the only one with the guts to tell Brown to go!"

Ah, but will he go?

Liz Brown

Doesn't he have to be elected as an MP first and renounce his title second> I suspect that the loves that too much to give it up But seriously, the mind positively boggles at the thought of that fraudulent bastard as PM............

Ian C

The nearest Mandy will get to being PM is to be the first to put his hand on the dagger that does for Brown.

He'll have false fingerprints on the end of his fingers when he does it though!

Verity

Liz Brown, then your mind is easily boggled, given that the present occupant is a fraudulent bastard and he succeeded an even more repulsive fraudulent bastard.

Matthew Blott

@ Fergus Pickerng

Nice to see bigotry is alive and well.

strapworld

Verity,

Mandleson, I would suggest, would do so from a position of strength. A majority of the cabinet and or the Parliamentary Party. Simply go now with 'honour' or face a leadership challenge or a vote of no confidence!

I think Brown would have to be prised out. But he is supposed to be intelligent.

Moxon

It's said that no future PM will be bald. Could a future PM have that pained, saintly,..... Mandy visage?

Fergus Pickering

Chuchill went to bed with Ivor Novello according to the web. But didn't everybody? That still leaves one. Come on, Matthew Blott. Even you must want to know.

Verity

Fergus P - Who said so? Ivor Novello?

j.d

mandelson is the boy for the job put him in the international arena he'd go prepared for action .at home he would make most civil servants awake from thier long sleep,the man is focused