Mandelson: Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water

William

Peter Mandelson - the man who tells British people to go and work in Warsaw and argues that the only way to save the Post Office is to privatise it and the only way to save the banks is to virtually nationalise them.

Does Mandelson have any principles at all other than the desire to make as much money for himself as possible?

Ian C

He might have said this before Blair and GB went about their economy destroying spending spree. So I don't agree that a left of centre politician should be allowed near the WTO.

Rupert Boles

He promotes the interests ,and benefits the bank balances and business interests, of all sorts of gangsters as well as himself. Oligarchs a speciality.

TomTom

In the rush to build a new capitalism

This Communist era also saw the young Mandelson selling Morning Star, but what was his selling slogan outside Kilburn Tube station?

"I used to shout 'Come and get it'," he joked, before admitting his rallying cry was in fact the more mundane "Morning Star, daily paper of the workers".

Chuck Unsworth

And Mandelson is, doubtless, in the best position to judge 'what worked' - at least, 'what worked' for him.

How is he getting on with ensuring global incorporation of Doha?

Isn't he due to go on holiday soon?

HJ

I am fed up with all this talk of New Labour types being in favour of free trade.

Labour has diverted an ever-greater proportion of our national wealth into the public sector, none of which operates in a free trade (i.e internationally competitive) environment. Most is simply tax-funded monopoly. Worse, private sector suppliers to the public sector have generally flourished simply because they get business because of their close public sector contacts, rather than their international competitiveness. Then there is the huge increase in complexity of regulations and taxes - creating plenty of work for UK-based accountants, for example.

Meanwhile, the productive part of the economy - which has to pay for all this - has suffered dreadfully either in export markets or against importers that don't have the same domestic cost, compliance and tax burden.

Labour may talk free trade, but name me a Labour politician that has ever had to survive in such an environment.

seb

On behalf of other bemused readers of comments on this site and Spectator articles, could I please ask for an exegesis, a detailed account, anything that explains Mandelson's catechism about the retreat of economic nationalism and the spread of open markets being good things. Perhaps they are. Perhaps they are absolute disasters instead. Nothing outside of religious belief in thisworld is unchallengeable dogma. What has been so good about these two developments that it outweighs the bad of mass unemployment, outsourcing and trade deficits on a cosmically vast scale?

Bill Corr

Lord Mandelson of Hartlepool and Foy is a living personification of all that is most rotten about the Labour Party?

Will the appalling Mandelson, vile charlatan that he is, be driven from public office or simply fade into the evening shadows?

Michael Booth

can we throw Lord Mandelson out with the bathwater?

Doug

Lord Mandelson might say a few coherent things now and again but that nowhere near outweighs the terrible damage he and his slimy mates in the Labour party have done to politics and the government. He is not elder statesman material but instead a no holds barred, gutter politician.

Aldbrough St Blaizy

Mandelson gives snout-in-the-trough politicians a bad name.

The Bellman

I think this is a coded plea for leniency on him after the rout at the polls: "In the rush to rebuild the Labour party from the wreckage of the next election, don't forget that I helped you win two elections..."

John Crow

This is nonsense, like so much else that leaves Mandelson's mouth. The 'free trade' referred to is no such thing: it is horribly constrained free trade (China's currency and wages both held artificially low, for instance, enduring US and EU protectionism)which has led to all sorts of distortions. It is ridiculous to defend free trade as a mantra.

David Ossitt

Bill Corr
April 2nd, 2009 2:10pm

Lord Mandelson of Hartlepool and Foy is a living personification of all that is most rotten about the Labour Party?

Bill, are you sure that he is alive, they do some funny things to stay young in Brazil.

What do they call them?

Zombie is the word I was looking for.

Rex Burr

Seb and John Crow
It’s refreshing to read the comments of others who cannot see the benefits of the new religion and dogma of ‘Free Trade’.
The distortions and inequalities that can result from free trade within a country can be ameliorated by government policies within that country. No such mechanism exists on a global level except for a complete collapse of the type that we are experiencing.
Obama has been criticised for his ‘Buy American’ message to companies carrying out domestic infrastructure projects. Why would any country do anything other than buy available domestically produced goods in such circumstances?
Why would I pay my neighbour to clean my windows if I were able to do it myself and still have the cash in my pocket for something else, like heating oil?