Mandelson the maestro

Rhoda Klapp

Did anybody ask him for the list of public service reforms carried out by New Labour in the last 12 years which have done any good?

Publius

Mandelsohn's main strength is that he doesn't really care. He has made his millions out of us. He is sitting pretty. He can say what he likes.

As for "Maestro", do me a favour! He only shines when set against the rest of the vile mediocrities who flatter themselves that they are statesmen.

J R Hartley

Settlement rights for Ghurkas - climbdown.

42 days detention - climbdown.

Expenses reform - climbdown.

Private Iraq inquiry - climbdown pending.

I think the Royal Mail reform climbdown was inevitable.

Gordon lacks courage and now has Mandy to spin his lies to the contrary. Yeah he's slick when he's allowed to spin and lie, without rebuttal, but aren't they all?

Peter

Im with Mandy on the Tories NHS policies. As things stand Lansley is going to scrap the cancer target and turn the NHS over to a giant quango.

strapworld

I do find this all very tedious. This man is unelected. Sacked how many times? Treated as if he is the greatest politician that ever walked this earth.

The man is a liar, a man who should have gone to prison over his mortgage application! A Man who has sold his soul to the EU and is willing to sell our beloved country.

The man is quite frankly a disgrace. And we have to read sycophantic nonsense like this, I get so annoyed.

He is just another villain in a party and government of villains.

I believe, truly, in what goes around comes around and I will be leading the laughter and cheering when it finally comes around for this
disgraceful liar. As it will.

Cameron can do us all a favour by announcing that he will bring in true reform to the House of Lords and make it a fully ELECTED second chamber. That would put paid to Mandleson and his cronies.

seb2

The tories have been quietly outflanked by labour on public service reform. The cameron strategy of cosying up to the unions and the staff will come home to roost when they are in government and cant get anything done.

CS

Rhoda, the reforms over the last 12 years amount to this:

Start with a Civil Service doing the work of government pretty slowly and outdatedly end with a Civil Service generating nothing but self-justifying statistics...but doing it very quickly and efficiently.

JGS

It seems to me that it's time the press stopped treating Mandelson with kid gloves. His claim that the parliamentary timetable was too full to press ahead with the Royal Mail reforms wasn't just, as you say, "absurd"; it was a lie. If that's what passes for "a masterclass" then God help us all.

CS

Hmmm...in retrospect, please delete the word "efficiently" from my analysis above.

CS

...and in further retrospect, please also delete the words "very quickly" too.

Simon Stephenson

"Whatever you think of his politics, it is a masterclass in how to handle this kind of interview."

What, giving non-answers to loaded question/assertions?

Maybe so, but of what possible constructive use is this? About as much as digging a hole one day, and filling it in the next.

Time to realise that every day this communicational impasse goes on, the further behind the rest of the world we'll become.

adrian drummond

I wish you wouldn't keep praising Mandelson. The very fact that he keeps this Government in power through his machiavellian ways is appalling enough.

john miller

I think we have an unholy trinity in charge of the "government", fighting purely for the next election.

Balls does the hatchet man job, Harman keeps the party members happy and Mandleson runs everything else.

Brown is a ventriloquist's dummy, with a different hand up his back from day to day and spouting whatever comes into the triumvirate's heads.

In the last 48 hours, Brown has been told that the Post Office won't go ahead, the spending review won't go ahead and that he has had to announce that his beloved target culture hasn't worked.

He's a leader with a ring through his nose.

Ivy Eileen

I'm sorry, James, but I am tired of reading about the media falling over in a swoon with Mandelson. He's not a smart media operator, he's a glib one. Your FT postscript is worthy of "Hello" magazine.

He reminds me of Kaa in Junglebook. Eyes swivel and everyone falls over.

Remember he is on the record as having said words to the effect of "It doesn't matter if it's true or not. What's important is whether you are believed" (shades of Goebbels).

I may live in a limited circle, but everyone I know reacts to Mandelson with a grimace and a shiver down their spine (imagine a nasty taste or an unpleasant odour).

Andrew

I presume the reference to the First Secretary of Darkness as "PM:" was his idea?

TrevorsDen

A polite way of calling Mandelson a lying dissembling bastard. Not out of place around the current cabinet table.

If relying on Mandelson to save their scrawny necks is what the Labour party have come to then they are in a poor state indeed.

You do of course miss the central point. No one believes all these blandishments by Mandelson, everyone knows they are a fig-leaf - both the electorate and not least the people who interview him. How long will they continue to play the game rather than do their jobs?

Trevorsden

May I add that Publius is totally right.

It does not matter what Mandelson says or Brown or any of them. Mandelson is sitting pretty on what he has troughed from the public purse already and can make even more by simply turning up at the Lords to claim his allowance. Brown and Co have nothing to lose - they can lie away to try to save their skins.

Mandelson is a good example of life peers only being for the 'life' of a parliament.

Tiberius

If Mandy went for the leadership of HM Opposition after the election, would anyone bother to challenge him? The likely contenders have already shown themselves to be invertebrate with a yellow streak, and anyway why would anyone want the job William Hague took on in 1997?

Mandy has the qualities (ooh it hurt to say that) to assemble the rump of the Labour party, and embrace the irony of his position. He's already got a fair few tee-shirts, so the chance to harrass Cameron at PMQs just for the fun of it might just appeal to him.

The Bellman

You can always smell your own farts, so when it comes to Faustian pacts, this chap should know what he's talking about.

I'm not sure that the general election result is particularly relevant to Mandelson's future influence. I once saw him as a Wormtongue figure within the government, but I underestimate him: McSnotty is hardly a Theoden, and such a weakened man can scarcely be a suitable vehicle for a someone of Mandelson's ambitions. Once Charles is king, this man will be all over the constitution like one of his ill-fitting suits. I can imagine Mandelson gripped by uncontrollable urges when he contemplates his power as advisor to a politically-activist monarch with so few coherent ideas of his own.

Max Atkinson

There shouldn't be any surprise if Mandelson knows how to handle interviews. After all, the only 'proper' job he had before going into politics was as a back room boy for one of the finest interviewers ever, namely Brian Walden.

The Bellman

The only plausible use of 'Mandelson' and 'Maestro' in the same sentence would "Mandelson's 'car scrappage scheme' enables someone driving a shitty old Austin Maestro worth £120 to subsidise the purchase of a new Fiat by £2,000, thus simultaneously boosting Italian and Polish car manufacturers while eroding the personal wealth of anyone who needs to replace a worn-out car but cannot afford to buy a new one, all by using borrowed money from overseas creditors that the government has no coherent plan to repay..."

Paul

This idiot is just dressed in Emporers clothes that are bestowed on him by greater idiots.

Chris lancashire

TrevorsDen: I agree with everything you say except that "No one believes these blandishments by Mandelson". People who take only a passing interest in politics may well accept his pathetic excuse for delaying action on the P.O. at face value. Many core and fringe Labour voters will dismiss the fact that he is indeed a lying dissembling bastard.

Dorothy Wilson

Actually, I remember using the words "Faustian Pact" on one of Nick Robinson's blogs several months ago. However, I used it to refer to the way in which Labour had turned a blind eye to the worst excesses of capitalism in the City in return for having the taxes generated to fuel the worst excesses of socialism as they pumped ever more money into the public services.

And surely the description should be applied to Labour continuing to spend, spend, spend whilst pushing the country into more and more indebtnesses.

Mandelson might well find the "Faustian Pact" back fires on him. And the sooner the better!

Verity

I don't know why The Speccie and Westminster Village is so dazzled by Mandelson. He doesn't seem to impress anyone outside the Village.

2trueblue

The man really is bad news.Why the media givehim such an easy ride is the real question. He is manipulative and very unpleasant. It is laughable to see/hear/read how clever he is. When the Lords has elected members only, he will be gone. Not soon enough.

egh

Oh that's a good one. Mephistopheles accuses other people of Faustian pacts!!!

David Ossitt

Slithering, slimy, creepy, vile, loathsome, repellent, and the arch coward Gordon Brown, makes him "First Secretary of State, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and Lord President of the Council".

We have sunk to this.

mitch

Why do people listen to mandelson? why this reputation?
The mans a twice sacked fraud with a dodgy personal life, everything he utters is either lies or half truths so why listen??
Ignore the fool and he will go away.

anne allan

I'm trying to think of which Shakespearian play the current situation reminds me.
Certainly not one of the tragedies - none of these characters started off as remotely noble.
Richard III? One of the Henry's? Certainly in terms of sheer nastiness, we need to go back to the Wars of the Roses.

Verity

I am impressed by the corruption writ in the face in this photograph. This individual is vile. He's from the same toxic nest of vipers as Tony Blair, who also has a disturbing face. Look at their faces and see the familial likeness.

What on earth is this doing slithering around the top levels of our government? Unelected. The Mother of Parliaments and now its whore.

The Lords has to be closed down and returned to the hereditaries whose personal ambitions were not served by it. The real lords sought to conserve. And weren't even that interested in attending, except for debates in which they had a special interest or on which they had special knowledge. Other than that, they came in occasionally, had lunch in the Lords' dining room, not that great, frankly, but probably as good as they got at home, then buggered off for the next few weeks.

The compulsive attendees are the socialist vipers who are working towards destruction. The Lords must not be destroyed. It was the greatest legislative chamber in the world, because the hereditaries aren't interested in interfering in what is not their business. Like who can eat sweets, or whether pubs should be establishments wherein people could smoke, whether Muslims should be allowed all Muslim swimming days in the local pools, whether Stazi park attendants could arrest OAPs for dropping sweets papers ...

Our HoL was the fresh air of liberty and openness and must be returned to us. Hereditaries. Appointees a very rare event.

No disgraceful rubbish like "Lord" Mandelson and of the long, pretentious title which he has not earned, "Lady" Jay and all those fortune-hunters representing the Quangoes and Quangoettes.

Verity

Rhoda K writes: "Did anybody ask him for the list of public service reforms carried out by New Labour in the last 12 years which have done any good?"

I'll see you and up you one: Can anyone name one single socialist "reform" carried out over the last 12 years that did nothing but harm and destruction?

I'll get out of the way ... before the .... STAMPEEEDE

Paul

Let's be clear here - mandelson is the master of extreme misrepresentation. This is not a skill worthy of praise, especially when being used to cover the economic disaster in progress.

cuffleyburgers

Nice Nazi salute, mandelson.

Freudian slip eh?

Andy

This would be the Mandelson who was forced to resign TWICE over dodgy dealings, wouldn't it? The one who is unelected and unaccountable yet to all intents and purposes, to judge from his "pledges", is running the government? The one who says we'll join the Euro? I want my democracy back.