Mandelson: I would work with the Tories
David Blackburn 11:00am
The Conservative party’s seizure of the progressive agenda and the rhetoric of liberal democracy suggests that Cameron intends to build a broad coalition. But how large would the Tories’ tent be? Peter Mandelson reveals that he would have no trouble “serving his country” under a Conservative government.
‘In an interview with The Sunday Times magazine, the business secretary said he would be willing to put his “experience at the disposal of the country”, if Labour lost power. “As I grow older, I can imagine more ways of serving my country than simply being a party politician,” he said.
Asked whether he might use his experience in business and world trade under a future government, he said: “If I was asked to do something for my country using that asset base, of course, I would consider it.”
On the specific point of whether he would consider requests from a Conservative government, he said: “Of course, it wouldn’t be serving the government, it would be serving the country and I wouldn’t be doing it by becoming a member of that government.”
Mandelson, who will be 56 next month, said he was “too tribal” ever to become a Tory minister and insisted he was focused on helping Labour win the election.’
Regardless of Mandelson’s extensive experience and undoubted political skill, Post-‘Yachtgate’ and having been the recipients of repeated slurs, it’s unthinkable that the Conservatives could or would want to accomodate Mandelson. A Tory source told the Sunday Times: "We are building a broad coalition but including Peter Mandelson may be stretching it.” On the first morning of the Labour conference, Mandelson’s statements sound defeatist. But his patrician’s appeal to Cameron’s broad tent out of a sense of patriotism is another episode in the public re-invention of Peter Mandelson.
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A wily move by a guy who unconsciously maybe aware that New Labour = New Treason = a busted balance sheet and contempt for "our boys".
paracelsus
September 27th, 2009 11:50am Report this commentWhat's the angle? There's always an angle with Mandelson, a hidden agenda.
mitch
September 27th, 2009 11:50am Report this commentHe should be serving time not "his country" the man is as responsible as blair/brown for the state we are in.
His ego must need a separate seat when he flies anywhere.
Vulture
September 27th, 2009 11:52am Report this commentIf Cameron gave Mandelson so much as a post shovelling s**t in Hartlepool we would know that the conspiracy theorists are right and that the country really is run by the EUSSR/Bilderberg Group/Nu World Order. The only job Mandy deserves is slopping out his fellow prisoners' cells in the Scrubs as he serves his bird for high treason.
Michael Booth
September 27th, 2009 11:53am Report this comment“As I grow older, I can imagine more ways of serving my country than simply being a party politician,” he said.
Great! A tour of duty in Helmand Province then?
Robert Eve
September 27th, 2009 11:57am Report this commentServing the country would be a first for this ****er!!
Norman Dee
September 27th, 2009 12:00pm Report this commentbe the first to comment ? I think most people will be lost for words at this open view of the labyrinth that is Mandelbums mind. It beggars believe as to how far that man can go on his belly alone.
TrevorsDen
September 27th, 2009 12:01pm Report this commentCome off it - Mandelson was just being mendacious.
He is implying that the Tories need his help so better to vote for Labour. Lets just treat Mandelson with the contempt he deserves - yes?
strapworld
September 27th, 2009 12:08pm Report this commentwhat is that saying about hissing out of the tent rathr than hissing into it?
Of Course Mandleson will be extremely welcome in that eurofanatic, Cameron's, government.
BrianSJ
September 27th, 2009 12:09pm Report this commentwot Verity said.
The post he has in mind is surely Regional Commissioner under President Bliar. The region being that part of Europe formerly known as the United Kingdom.
Eire - please say No.
Senor Frizby
September 27th, 2009 12:17pm Report this commentIt makes a change from his country serving him. I would suggest throwing him in the Tower of London but he'd only steal the crown jewels & start holding court to his cartel of international reprobates.
egh
September 27th, 2009 12:46pm Report this comment!!!!!????????**********|||||@@@@@@@@
GoodbyeGordon
September 27th, 2009 1:30pm Report this commentYes a mortgage fraudster at the helm is just what Britain needs.
Herbert Thornton
September 27th, 2009 4:06pm Report this commentThis is no doubt an interesting topic, but while what Mandelson may be up to must always be a cause for worry, what Cameron is undoubtedly up to is entirely dismaying.
Verity
September 27th, 2009 4:16pm Report this commentThe wriggle-hipped Lord Rio rumbas over to the Tories whispering smoothly, "Gie us a job." And Dave, in the incredibly unlikely event of a Tory victory, would give him one.
Peter
September 27th, 2009 4:24pm Report this commentWhat an arrogant little man. Why on earth would Cameron want to sully his credentials by inviting this pro-European slimeball anywhere near his tent?
If Cameron becomes Prime Minister I hope he will distance himself from anything to do with the "Noolabour project".
R King
September 27th, 2009 5:31pm Report this commentMaybe Dave could employ him diffusing mines in Afghanistan......... With a shovel and a diving boot!!
David Parker
September 27th, 2009 5:33pm Report this commentI would have suggested that the best way Mandelson could serve this country is by leaving it; permanently. But, such is his ego that, as may well the case, like Blair, and probably soon also Brown, he would continue to strut the world stage, revelling in the sycophancy which would be accorded to him by either the UN or the EU.
If he really wanted to serve 'his country' (having done everything in his power to destroy the nation state), perhaps he should take an example from Jonathan Aitken, and work for a while for some social rehabilitation group.
Chuck Unsworth
September 27th, 2009 5:46pm Report this commentMore importantly, would the Conservatives work with Mandelson - Mr Duplicity?
Not if they've got the slightest intelligence, they won't.
SUSAN HILL
September 27th, 2009 6:06pm Report this commentOf course he would. He would get into bed with the devil in order to retain power, prominence and pay.
EC
September 27th, 2009 6:19pm Report this commentEU President Tony Blair! PM David Cameron!
His Eminence Lord Mandelson would be their ideal choice at the FO. It's the Dream Ticket!
Couldn't happen?
Yellowbeard
September 27th, 2009 6:34pm Report this commentVerity@4:16pm. Avast behind!
Dave may well be cock-a-hoop at his winnin and thaat, but that be a very serious acusayshun thatee be a makin there!
Tankus
September 27th, 2009 7:20pm Report this comment@egh "!!!!!????????**********|||||@@@@@@@@"!
+1
Mandy is now re organising his expenses claims (backdated) as some restrictions have been relaxed in order to cover the tongoed baronesses backside .
Lots of peers now in the wonga because of the girl from tonga.
David Lindsay
September 27th, 2009 7:23pm Report this commentHave you stopped to ask yourselves what it is that he finds so attractive about Cameron?
Like Andrew Adonis and the vile James Purnell, that unrepentant old stalwart of the Young Communist League, Peter Mandelson, has obviously been offered a Cabinet job under Cameron, and has obviously accepted it. Adonis can keep his present one and be in that position. Purnell’s departure was not for that reason, and came many months after the situation became perfectly plain. Indeed, Adonis was promoted to Cabinet long after his deal with Cameron was made public to minimal comment, so unremarkable has such a thing now become.
The Cameroons’ favourite think tank, other than that forgers’ den owned by the Blairite-praising Michael Gove, was one of several continuation operations created out of the rubble of the Communist Party of Great Britain. However, it appointed an unrepentant old Trotskyist from back in the day, Geoff Mulgan, as its Director. Since it combined the Stalinist and Trotskyist heritages, and since it did so at the heart of faaaashionable London’s pseudo-academia, its influence over New Labour was massive, almost incalculable.
And now, its influence over the New Tories, who have in George Osborne a Number Two and Heir Apparent without one per cent of the independent brain power of Gordon Brown, is set to be at least as great. Mulgan, meanwhile, is on for a peerage and Ministerial office under Cameron. Without repudiating even the tiniest detail of his past. Well, of course not.
Carol-Ann
September 28th, 2009 12:10am Report this commentI would not vote for a party that allows Mandelson anywhere near power. Therefore if the Tories were to play up to his vanity I would never vote for them again. WE WANT CHANGE. This is further evidence of the fact that the parties are now indistinguishable and we are being governed by an out of touch political class.
Fergus Pickering
September 28th, 2009 5:09am Report this commentThis post gives me additional evidence that the Extreme Right Wing Tendency over here are just as crazy as they are in the States. Three of you purport to think that Cameron will give Mandelson a cabinet job. I will bet any one of you a hundred pounds that does not prove to be the case. Come on, put your money where your loud mouths are. No, I thought not.
Dorothy Wilson
September 28th, 2009 10:04am Report this commentFergus: You are abosolutely right. Mandelson might offer his services but neither the Conservatives nor the country would want to accept his offer.
David
September 28th, 2009 11:07am Report this commentAnd Mandy must know that so what is his game? I think he is undermining Brown again. Tories are not the devil incarnate, I could work with them you know. I can readily see a future where they form the Government and our saviour is signing on in Kirkcaldy. I could cope with that.
The days when Mandy saved Brown are running out. Conspiracy theorists will no doubt be looking to Eire for a reason but I think Mandy is a realist above all things.
tenpin
September 28th, 2009 11:32am Report this commentI think you have mis-quoted Mandy I think it should have been: "As I grow older I can think of more ways of screwing this country"
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