A dividing line that's dividing government

john problem

Mandy is too smart for British politics - far too bright, too clever by half. Compared with the other Cabinet members he doth bestride our world like a colossus. In a way it's a pity he isn't Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and plotting a putsch or coup d'etat. One feels that dear old Gordon has got to a situation where he wishes he had men about him who were fat. In any event, Mandy is wasted in the Labour party - he should have his own. He should angle for PR to be adopted. We all loved the Baroness because she was tough... Why not another toughie to run the country?

FontBlair

For the average Labour voter "Mr 10%" is very effective because any spending is usually not their tax money and normally means benefit cuts.

Thank goodness the majority of voters aren't tribal socialists like Brown!!

Bexleyite

I don't honestly think any of this matters any more. They're trying to spin the Euro and council elections as the 'expenses election'. Like the man said on BBC QT last week, this wasn't an expenses election, this was a 'we want a general election' election. Mandelson's got as far as he's ever going to get. But he's got the lump sums and the pensions so he's ok. It's all downhill for Brown and Balls.

Like the other man said to Hain on BBC QT, you might have forgotten us but, come the next election, we won't forget you.

Paul B

I have to admit, I have a sneaking regard for Mandy, he is one class operator. He is wasted on Brown

Andy Carpark

It took me a while to get the point of the short-lived Private Eye skit, "Born to be Queenie" by Sylvie Krin, but it is starting to look powerfully prescient now.

As Freud more or less said, if you are domestically fulfilled then why would you want to rule the world? It is perhaps relatively clear why Mandelson should make politics his life. As for the others … one has to suspect that the reason why power means so much to them is likely to be something considerably more primitive than evangelical Christianity or a Presbyterian conscience.

The Bellman

Peter Mandelson is not CinC material. He's a natural born chief of staff. That's no bad thing in itself, of course. But 'Mandelsonism'? It would be rebranding, repositioning and de-contaminating. He is all about ways and means, not ends - unless you see power/influence as an end itself, which, I concede, he probably does.

So I can imagine him plotting and implementing a putsch, and doing it jolly well - but I cannot imagine him doing anything once he was in power. He would be like the dog that caught the car.

Simon Stephenson

"Lord Mandelson and Alistair Darling, who argue that the Government has to be honest with the voters"

Honest? HONEST?

To even put Mandelson in the same sentence as the word honest is to deny that you know what honest means.

I commented to the Sylvester article:-

"Too many of them have characters that are not able to deal with being wrong. This causes them to assume impossible certainties of belief, to show paranoid reluctance to discuss in a way that would expose these impossibilities, and to be unable to embrace a basically honest intellectual convention."

Mandelson doesn't do honesty (a) because he can't and (b) because it would hamper the building of his power base. Like Brown and Balls, and many of the others, their dishonest relationship with the public is about protecting their own flawed characters. It's nothing to do with doing their best for the country.

Just because we've ended up with a government ridden with inauthentic communication* doesn't mean that this is how it MUST be. It's not politics that must have lies, it's the politicians that we've ended up with.

* wording taken from another of today's Times articles, by Matthew Taylor, well worth reading.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6506129.ece

Steve.W

The idea that Lord Mandy of the long title is a clever dick is pure spin. Started, I think, by the good Lord himself. Consider the facts, Mandy sets out 100% behind Gordon Brown. Then along comes Tony Blair, the great man changes his mind and is now 100% behind Blair. After a few 'problems' leading to two resignations he goes to the EU. Is he popular there? Well before his time is up he comes back to the UK and is once again 100% behind Brown.
He sounds like an opportunistic ditherer to me, I wouldn't have him on my yacht.

David

Bringing Mandelson back is the best thing Brown has done as PM. He's a devious lying shit but he is highly competent and can apply the lash better than anyone (look what happened to Osbo). If this Government is to stagger on for another 350 days I am glad he will have a big say in it.

The Bellman

McSnotty is on stage in Blackpool at the moment, reinforcing the parallels with Archie Rice in *The entertainer*.

He's going for it on the '10% cuts', even if he sounds deranged. He's charging over the stage like he needs the loo, and windmilling his arms like he's marshalling a helicopter onto the deck of an aircraft carrier. It's even funnier with the sound off.

'He had just one idea, but that one being 'cut'/The good Mandy engaged him at once..."

Andy Carpark

"windmilling his arms like he's marshalling a helicopter "

Interesting. That is exactly what IDS did at the 2003 Conference after misguidedly reinventing himself as a noisy man. And look what happened next.

Max Atkinson

Labour politicians' preference for using the word 'investment' rather than 'expenditure' has diminished since Brown took over.

A few years ago, I asked one of Blair's closest advisors whether talking about public 'investment' rather than public 'expenditure' was a deliberate ploy to make it sound more respectable, to which he replied "Of course it is."

For more on this and a video of the PM boasting about 'spending' without mentioning 'investment', see: http://maxatkinson.blogspot.com/2009/06/gordon-browns-honesty-about-death-of.html

logdon

From Prince of Darkness to Brown Balls Mandelson in one fell swoop?

What an image? Straight from the Westminster Village Private Members Tanning Parlour.

Does Pete know something we don't?

Major Plonquer

In case you hadn't noticed, Brown-Balls-Mandelson is actually a clever anagram of 'Blown, Smells and Baron'.

Dan Brown will probably detail this in his forthcoming book about messages from the devil (and certainly NOT from freemasons).

Major Plonquer
British DailySex (Dyslexia) Society