Why Mandelson isn't deputy PM

WitteringsfromWitney

Any - I was going to say man - who can wear a red pullover with a blue suit and tie has no right to any position of note!

If he has no idea of attire, what idea can he have of running the country?

rmh

The country being run by a completly unelected leader, is that a Junta?

Scott

I am curious what definition of "underdog" he is using.

If he simply means "least likely to win the next General Election" then a more accurate term would be "losers"...

Tiberius

No matter how many times Mandelson wears a "v" neck sweater with a jacket and tie, he'll never be Harry Callahan.

Baron Sharon of Kinkypool

I'm starting to like his Eminence "Baron" Mandelson of Foy. His news-ability makes for great lighthearted summer jest.

I bet he loves the photo-opps that occur hanging with old & young Rothschild's alike. Rubbing shoulders with a dynastic money men must plume the feathers of his courtly ego rather pleasantly!

"I'm no the pheasant plucker, I'm the pheasant pluckers son!"

Grumpy Old Man

Blame the Civil Servant for influencing a decision which would have destroyed the Cabinet. We Tories hate Mandy with a passion, but we are way behind the Labour Party in the splenetic stakes. Typical piece of labour spin, to be taken with a kidney-destroying pinch of salt.

Erik Bloodaxe

I read that as "mincing the shop".

Tom Scholes-Fogg

As much as we know he wants to be the official DPM he needs to be elected, it is wrong that an unelected politician is of such a high rank in cabinet. I do like Peter Mandelson but he should be an elected politician not an unelected one.

Moraymint

What's with that red-sweater-and-a-jacket sartorial policy? Like the Party as whole, has the Lord no shame?

Derek

@ WitteringsfromWitney That kit is de rigeur as normal business wear among certain Chinese communist party officials. They put on the tailored suits for G8 meetings, open-necked shirts when visiting the masses to preempt their anger over the collapse of a school jerry-built by some party contractor and Mao suits shortly before ordering the army to open fire on the people. Could it be that our good socialist Baron may have been photographed on his way to beg a loan for Great Britain from the Peking capitalists? And if you amend "running" to "ruining" all falls into place...

Kevyn Bodman

There's a lot I don't like about Mandelson but I don't care about his dress sense.

He is not 'good with colours; this might be a surprise but it doesn't matter.

Malcolm

And what's all this nonsense about a law to enable him to stand as an MP - if he was so inclined of course? (although that would make him accountable to the electorate so is likely to be avoided). He merely has to renounce his title, it's as simple as that, in the same way that Wedgie Benn, as Viscount Stansgate, did. NuLiebour just love reaching for the Satute Book at the slightest excuse - does it make them feel important perhaps?

Rhoda Klapp

Contrarian view here. Not about Mandelson, about whom I have the same views as most, but about the possibility of somebody with a peerage taking part in government. Labour have over the last twelve years hacked unmercifully at our constitution. All manner of traditions flung away, half-assed changes made and not thought through. And yet there never was a prohibition about a peer being PM. Up to Victorian times it was quite acceptable. There's no reason why the PM can't take questions in the lower house, he merely needs to walk in and take a seat at the box. No reason why the deputy PM has to be elected, it's not an elected office. It is up to the party who gets the job. And the PM. Who is not elected as such but invited to form a government by HM.
With all the evil things going on in UK politics right now, hair-splitting nonsense over whether we can have a peer as PM or deputy PM when these things have been easily accommodated in the past can only be seen as tiresome argufying.

Susan Hill

Oh really. The Daily Mail has embarassing pics of Mandelson today in his holiday gear, and yes, he looks awful and no, he has no dress sense and of what conceivable possible relevance has that to anything, even in the silly season ? I don`t especially want sharp dressers who get their pink ties and blazers from Jermyn Street in government either but shall we all grow up now ?

Derek

Oh reallY. So ignore politicians who choose to adopt the style of apparatchiks; let William Hague wear a baseball hat; say nothing if Brown wears a lounge suit to a white tie affair at the Guildhall; ignore Michael Foot if he wears a donkey jacket to the Remembrance Day ceremonies at the Cenotaph; accept that the Prime Minister may pick his nose on camera on the government front bench in the House of Commons; ignore the member of the audience who urinates in public at a West End show;disregard the trend towards our policewomen having to wear burkas; take no notice of the knifings that punctuate the life of civil society in our cities; and admit that fashion, art, music, painting, architecture, manners and literature, indeed how we present ourselves in public has absolutely no relevance to anything, let alone the quality and trajectory of our political and civil society. I don't think so.