Mandelson: If I can come back, we can come back
James Forsyth 4:28pm
You would have got long odds on it in the 1990s, but Peter Mandelson is now a conference darling. His hugely hammy performance delighted the hall and earned him a prolonged standing ovation.
Since he has returned to British politics, Mandelson has sought to deliver enough good lines to write his own story. He deliberately inverted Tony Blair’s quote about choosing the Labour party and rallied the audience by saying ‘If I can come back, we can come back.’ He flirted with conference before confirming that the car scrappage scheme would be extended before wrapping up with a string of attacks on the Tories and a declaration that “this election is up for grabs.”
But Mandelson’s speech actually showed what one of Labour’s biggest problems is: the lack of domestic policy message. Apart from the car scrappage scheme, there was little concrete policy in the speech. Instead, there was a lot of stuff about the role of the state but little translation of what that means in real terms: there are few positives to be sold on the doorstep.
Labour, though, has come up with its attack lines on the Tories. The messages are that Tory dogma gets in the way of them doing sensible things, that there are two faces to the Tory party and that Cameron and Osborne are too inexperienced. I’m sceptical of how effective these attacks will be. Polling does not suggest that Cameron comes across as being particularly ideological and it is hard to simultaneously claim that there is no substance to him and that he is an ideologue.
The Tories are, as they privately admit, vulnerable to the charge that while Cameron has changed, the party hasn’t. But Labour’s emphasis on attacking Cameron personally means they can’t try and separate Cameron from his party—the Tories made the same strategic mistake with Blair in the run up to 1997.
The final charge will undoubtedly have some effect. Cameron and Osborne are undeniably inexperienced, something that they tacitly acknowledge with their efforts to promote Hague and decision to bring back Ken Clarke. One of the reasons that Cameron is keen on a debate between party leaders, despite being ahead in the polls, is a belief that a head to head with Brown would give him a chance to disprove this charge.
Previous
RMH
September 28th, 2009 4:47pm Report this commentThe inexperience thing won't wash.
Fred Goodwin is an experienced banker for eg.
The issue is one of likeability. Cameron has it, Brown is like the geek down the pub that people know of, but avoid in case they have had to much drink.
People want change, and the winter of issues we will now face will mean a 79 game changing moment.
Then Cam will bring in electoral reform and ringfence a decent 2nd termn majority.
Michael
September 28th, 2009 4:48pm Report this commentPoor chap doesn't realise he HASN'T come back. He's merely been appointed by his cronies to mind Brown: all it demonstrates is the total lack of talent within the remains of Labour.
Prodicus
September 28th, 2009 4:53pm Report this comment'Inexperienced' will not wash. 95 per cent of Blair's 1997 team - including Brown and Mandelson - had never been in government and most of them had never had a job outside politics either. It did not dissuade the electorate from giving Blair the victory and destroying Major's Tories.
Brazen
September 28th, 2009 4:53pm Report this comment‘If I can come back, we can come back.’
To "come back" you must have been somewhere!
Where have liebour been?
For Mandelson read Nero!!
Silent Hunter
September 28th, 2009 4:54pm Report this commentOr to put it another way . . .
If I can fiddle my mortgage / expenses and get away with it - so can we all.
Roll on the General Election.
logdon
September 28th, 2009 4:57pm Report this comment"If I can get the Labour Party to love Peter Mandelson, I'll have done my job."
And thus I paraphrase St. Anthony as he spoketh and lo the Labour Party hath cometh to love their prodigal son and last chance saviour, the spawn of aformentioned St. Anthony, known as the Israelite, Peter Son of Mandel.
And thus the mighty deed is done, despiteth Son of Mandel's ungodly obsession with all manner of the mannah and fatted calves strewn wherever his manly gaze alights.
Forever and for always this tale shall be told as the repentant horny hand of toil Phillistines buried their enmity in order to regaineth their righteous position in the Kingdom knowneth hence as New Brittania.
Or something like that!
Nick
September 28th, 2009 4:58pm Report this commentPeter Mandelson's "come back" didn't actually require anyone to vote for him. Unfortunately for Labour this option won't be available for them at the next election.
Vulture
September 28th, 2009 4:59pm Report this commentNapoleon had Mandelslime perfectly when he described his treacherous Foreign Minister, Tallyrand: 'S**t in a silk stocking'.
logdon
September 28th, 2009 5:00pm Report this commentApologies to the Hislopians who do it so much better.
Irene
September 28th, 2009 5:03pm Report this commentWasn't Brown an experienced chancellor?
Enough said.
TrevorsDen
September 28th, 2009 5:04pm Report this commentThe Labour conference cheers as Mandelson promises to give taxpayers money to the Korean car industry whilst standing by as Vauxhall and JagRL are effectively wound up and assets exported?
Oh it hasn't happened yet but Vauxhall are effectively wiped out once the Opel rationalisation is complete and JagLR hardly look viable.
Jack R
September 28th, 2009 5:10pm Report this commentLabour really is desperate; there's old so-called 'leftie' Dennis Skinner approving Mandelson's chicanery.
Myopic Labour can't see through Mandelson's falsity, which should read:
'If I can come back from being an unelected European Commissioner to being an unelected Labour Cabinet Minister, don't think that you Labour lot can come back, if you have to have an election, which unfortunately you do'.
Liz Brown
September 28th, 2009 5:10pm Report this commentThe poor dears are so desparate for something/anything that they would probably laugh at granny falling off the stage - a mind numbing prospect sitting thro the troughers jolly
se1man
September 28th, 2009 5:13pm Report this commentthe ability to "come back" is not in itself especially clever or appealing.
Herpes can come back. A dodgy kebab can come back. Myxomatosis can come back.
Is that what he meant?
Chuck Unsworth
September 28th, 2009 5:57pm Report this commentAnd what the electorate should take care to remember is exactly how Mandelson came back - and the circumstances of his two departures. Is this the kind of discredited scumbag who is the role model for the Labour Party? I think it almost certainly is. Maybe they all are mini-Mandelsons.
The choice for the electorate is crystal clear.
Peggy.Day
September 28th, 2009 6:01pm Report this commentHere comes the Mandy effect...DAY ONE(ISH)
I just can not wait to see that smug grin wiped off Mandelson's face when the irish vote NO!!....So far so calm....
I will still be laughing in a hundred years time...and YES I WILL LIVE THAT LONG....just so I can still laugh at mandlebums sudden change of opinion about Brown & Labour...& the icing on the cake...Labour kicked out of power....Doing okay....
If the only thing they can offer the country after twelve years in power is, Cameron has no experience....where does that leave Gordon Brown? With experience like his....bring on the Cameron!!!!!
Here we go......READY?......
Where was Brown's experience when spending every penny?, Where was Brown's experience when all his chums were buying stuff? Where was Brown's experience when he flogged of the country's gold? Where was Brown's experience when he was robbing todays pensioners? Where was Browns experience when cutting the MOD budget?, Where was Brown's experience when refusing the people a democratic vote....TWICE? Where was Brown's experience when the UK got overloaded with anyone from anywhere? Where was Brown's experience when Woolies, Zavvi,Principles,LDV and ALL the other small businesses went to the wall? Where is the quantitive easing for them?
God Mandelson is a bigger plank than I thought he was just this very morning...(and believe me I thought he was a right plank)....before that I just thought he was an arsehole.....Gordons experience?....you can just see it on his face,his nails,his hair and flowing through his bloodstream along with other dodgy stuff.
Oh by the way...can't stand any of them....just in case some gormless Labour shitewipe is reading this. OH & I've had a bad day at work.....could have been worse though ...I could have been at the Labourious conference.
Hey Tuesday tomorrow...one day less of the tossers and Gordon's experience!
If I've forgotten anything please update.
Jock
September 28th, 2009 6:04pm Report this commentDon't wish to be pedantic Lord M but you came back at the invitation of a desperate Gordon Brown. Gordon and Labour will need to come back at the invitation of the electorate.
bill
September 28th, 2009 6:20pm Report this commentIn principle, a lack of experience does not necessarily bother me; what concerns me about Cameron and his side kick are the other ways they measure up.
Thomas Cussans
September 28th, 2009 6:39pm Report this commentWhat is remarkable – startling in many ways – about Lord Peter is his staggering, stunning, stupendous hypocrisy. He is no more of a socialist than I am. He is interested exclusively in himself, meaning himself exercising power. Full stop.
All successful politicians are nasty deep down. But few can ever have been as nasty as 'Pussycat' Pete.
Barbara
September 28th, 2009 6:49pm Report this comment'Labour, c'est moi'
Roger Daley
September 28th, 2009 6:51pm Report this commentSimpering and whimpering the Old Duchess tells us how it isn't.
Frank P
September 28th, 2009 7:04pm Report this commentMandelson and his mincing malignant malefactors set out to destroy this country in the 1990s to make way for a socialist utopia via the counter-culture machinations of the neo-Marxist 'intellectuals' (traitors); we are destroyed!
Just call the rag and bone men to clear the site. We can only hope that the blood of the heroes of yesteryear will seed an avenging Phoenix from the scorched earth. May the destroyers face eternal agony in the deepest recesses of hell.
Meanwhile Hissing Sid Meddlesome continues to slither from the rancid caves he was temporarily confined in by his erstwhile collaborators in crime. His appearance today at the 'Labour Party' conference, his Narcissistic, precious preening; the completely false 'acclaim' from a party that, like him, clings to the bottom of a leaky buoy as the turbulent sea-change inundates their hopes and sinks their boat; should, if there is any kind of justice left on this planet, ensure that the Labour Party disappears without trace at the next election. God alone knows what will replace it, but nothing could be worse than what we have endured for the past twelve long years.
Oor Wullie
September 28th, 2009 7:09pm Report this commentRe car scrappage, what Mandelson didn't say was "I'm a scrapper not a crapper" (while looking deliberately at GB).
John Richardson
September 28th, 2009 8:25pm Report this commentAnyone applauding Mandleson for anything ?
This is why party politics is finished,dead,it just hasn't stopped moving yet.
Hasn't stopped providing a small number of people with a good living.It has zero relevance to the real issues facing our country.
These Conference attendees.....these are the thick as s*** bastards who have nearly destroyed our country.
A few thousand at the most. Far less Lab. Party members than Man Utd Fan Club Members.
Real Labour people are as ashamed of this 'darling of the conference', as they were when that other slimy mediocraty, Clinton , was cheered like a pop star.
Perhaps Elton John could turn up at the Con. Conference to add a touch of class ?
Wow !
That would really show how 'modern and relevant' the ex-Tories are.
PS.
I defy any person who may read this to tell of a person they know attending this Lab Conference, as a Delegate, who is not as thick as **** as stated above. This is not hatred, they are honestly sub average intelligence.
The Con Conf. I know much less about however I doubt decent Conservatives will turn up to be wished 'A Happy Diwali' (as last year) or to be told a Referendum on our National Self Determination would be 'unhelpful'.
Peggy.Day
September 28th, 2009 8:58pm Report this commentHow many of the 'poorest'little Labour supporters(Benefit claimants)are going to get a new car?
How many working class,(up to £50k PA) taxed to death and unable to get finance are going to get a new car?
That leaves the better better off getting the new cars.
Labour? The party of the many, not just the few.Where is the money coming from?...Darling is going to borrow/print it...who will pay it back...you got it...the working class.Please Cameron CHOP OFF THIS SPENDING SPREE....I can not afford it now and I can not afford it in three years time when the debts are called in.I DO NOT want my taxes to help someone on twice my pay to buy a new car!!!!!
logdon
September 28th, 2009 9:02pm Report this comment"Frank P
September 28th, 2009 7:04pm
"clings to the bottom of a leaky buoy"
Sure you got the spelling right, Frank?
Boudicca
September 28th, 2009 9:21pm Report this commentPeggy.Day
September 28th, 2009 6:01pm
Good comment - I wish I'd written it. You forgot the 10p tax debacle.
Frank P
September 28th, 2009 11:05pm Report this commentLogdon
I chose the metaphor very carefully and the spell checker looked the other way, as did the moderator. Perhaps there is hope for this magazine, yet.
Charlotte Corday
September 29th, 2009 11:58am Report this commentMandelson: "If I can come back, we can come back".
Oh, I see - undemocratically, you mean?
The Bellman
September 29th, 2009 12:20pm Report this commentFrank P: I obviously didn't out-fox the spell-checker or the moderator. Maybe this will work.
Mandelson is a b1ter not a sh1tter.
CARLY
September 30th, 2009 3:41am Report this commentThe indulgence of Mandelson's vanity by HM press is pathetic. He makes my skin crawl.
Sandbrook
October 2nd, 2009 11:05am Report this commentI don't undertand why anyone takes this smirking, eyebrow-twitching camp campaigner seriously. Mandelson has crashed out of every job he's been given nad this one man quango is going to crash out of Government at the election. No wonder he is dropping hints that he would 'help' Cameron if asked. Please would someone explain what is his attraction?
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