Mandelson finally gets his man

teledu

He's not in Unite, gay, female or from an ethnic minority is he! No wonder the local Labour Party is up in arms.

Naomi Muse

Lord Mandelbrot is bound to cause fractious and fractured groups. Why does he want Tristram Hunt to be an MP anyway?

In2minds

Susan Hill, what?

Sacre Bleu

I wonder if Hattie knew about this one but then maybe there is an entry about her in the Mandelson Black Book of Blackmail so she has to put up or shut up. Must be a pretty large book by now as nobody seems to be willing or able to put the finger on him and there is surely plenty of ammunition. A very unhealthy situation and sadly he is not alone but he would appear to be the consumate professional.

Victor Southern

Safe seat is it? Is Stoke not the town which has the biggest BNP following?

Noa Zrk

It's to be hoped that this election will see the end of the idea of "safe labour seats", as UKIP and the BNP move in to fill the political and moral vacuum created in the last 14 years by their contempt for their traditional voting base.

Irene

Tristram - not very Labour is it.

A pensioner

So if they don't like the parachutist they should select one of the others. Hopefully, even if they're spineless and select him, the voters will turn their backs on a Westminster sponsored outsider.

Raw Worth

He's a cutie. No wonder Mandy is right behind him!

Moriarty

Maybe things are different in the Westminster village but I've never understood why anybody would be scared of the mincing fraudster Lord Mortgage. Why not just say: "Piss off Peter, you are a corrupt and ludicrously self-regarding friend of Dorothy"? What's the downside?

David Lindsay

I - yes, even I - am astonished that Hunt has ever been a Labour Party member, never mind that he still is one.

He neither knows nor cares the first thing about the Labour Movement beyond the handful of upper-crust Fabians who went to public school or were otherwise associated with the Marxists, New Liberals, English Idealists and the like who genuinely interest him and with whom he strongly identifies.

Mandy wants him in so that he can be given something in a Government headed by the current leader of people like that, a Government in which Mandy has already promised to serve. That leader is not Gordon Brown.

ollie

LMAO - a guy named Tristram to fight for Stoke central. He's as much in common with that area as mandelscum did with Hartlepool.

Andrea

"He's not in Unite"

he's a Unite member

TomTom

Mandy must be a closet BNP supporter working hard in Stoke

2trueblue

Well it happened in Wales and the electorate had their say. Lets hope it can happen again.

AndyinBrum

Hmmm Private Eye has a good article on this too.

Sarah Hill

Not often I get a mention in the Spectator so it would be good if you could get my name right - it's Sarah Hill not Susan

Double Gloucester

I knew the name and face were familiar - looked him up on Wikipedia and see he was the presenter of the dreadful BBC2 series on the English Civil War back in 2002. I wondered at the time why the Beeb had asked a PhD student to front the programme (turns out he was 28 but he looked 18). I gather he is now a "celebrity historian". His Dad was the Labour Leader of Cambridge City Council and is now a Labour peer but young Tristram was nonetheless sent to Westminster School. This would be the same Labour party that derides those who went to Eton whilst depriving the average citizen of any choice other than to send their kids to the local sink Comprehensive.

David Ossitt

Irene

"Tristram - not very Labour is it."

No; but very much a Mandy.

J H Holloway

The Hon. Tristram Hunt (born 31 May 1974)...

Hunt is the son of Lord Hunt of Chesterton, who was leader of the Labour Group on Cambridge City Council in 1972-3.

After attending the private Westminster School, Tristram Hunt read history at Trinity College, Cambridge and the University of Chicago, and was for a time an Associate Fellow of the Centre for History and Economics at King's College, Cambridge. His PhD, Civic thought in Britain, c.1820- c.1860, was taken at Cambridge and was awarded in 2000.

Before this, Hunt had worked for the Labour Party at Millbank Tower in the 1997 general election; he also worked at the Party's headquarters during the following 2001 general election during the 2005 general election he supported Oona King's campaign in Bethnal Green.

The definitive New Labour CV, surely?

emil

Well the Labour voters in St Helens muttered and moaned but still voted for Sean Woodward, even though he's a toff with a butler, and Labour supporters are supposed to hate such people, so I doubt Mandy's chum will have any problems, although as I recall BNP have had some success on local councils...

Major Plonquer

I don't believe there is such a thing as a 'safe seat' when Peter Mandelson is hovering nearby....

Michael Booth

Is he Brazilian?

Ben Elford

So could we see a three-way fight between Labour, the BNP and an independent 'Real Labour' candidate?

Steve

If the TV work dries up there's always politics... Certainly beats doing a hard days work for a living.

Daddies a Peer I'm sure Tristram will understand all the money there is to be made selling the British public down the river.

davidke

Good working class lad. His dad was a tyre fitter in Oldham.

Austin Barry

Mandy's lips pursed as he languidly traced his fingers across a map of the West Midlands.

"There it is, Tristram, dear boy, Stoke: the Potteries. And I'm sure they'll just go potty over you." Mandy giggled and started to sway his hips in time with Rufus Wainwright's plangent voice. Tristram was so big and strong, and Mandy just felt like dancing.

Liz Brown

I am not convinced that the good people of Stole are likely to be

Greenslime

Sarah Who?

Vulture

I knew the Hon. Tristram in his historical capacity early in the noughties. On our first mtg. he told me he had once worked for Mandelslime as a 'tea boy'. Not realising what a full-on Liebour lad he was I merrily asked why he hadn't taken the opportunity to add ground glass to Mandy's
Camomile herbals. He didn't seem to find my jest funny. Well, maybe it wasn't.

But to see him standing in Stoke is
nothing short of bloody hilarious.

Marbury

So apparently, Peter Mandelson is gay. Isn't that HILARIOUS?

Dontmindme

I for one welcome this development. Perhaps now the BBC and others will stop taking him seriously as a historian, and treat him like just another lefty politician.

Oh wait, I said the BBC, that means he will continue to be taken seriously. Perhaps it is not such a good thing after all

Paul B

We (Tory voters) shouldn`t complain if a toff joins Labour and becomes a MP. Certainly we should be complaining when ut Nulab attacking DC and other for being toffs and going to Eton. We should point Nulabs hypocrisy on the subject and should point out the the Conservatives are the party of of the working classes.

Austin Barry

Marbury @9.29

"So apparently, Peter Mandelson is gay. Isn't that HILARIOUS?"

No, my upper-case chum, but possible, fugitive imperatives for patronage should always be looked at with a raised eyebrow.

Vulture

@Marbury: Well Mandy is gay, but I'm not sure that Tristy is. And nor do I care. It's not that that I find hilarious. It's the idea that this pretty-boy, middle class Cambridge grad lad with no links or interest in the Potteries can be parachuted in to an Old Liebore ( though speedily becoming new BNP) area, after failing to do the same trick in Leyton. (He was seen eating eels and mash there in an effort to establish his Cockney Essex credentials) - airily over-rideing all local worthies on the say-so of Lord Slimy - THAT is hilarious.

Though if I was a Liebour supporter I would find it tragi-comic. And vote BNP to spite them. Anyone for Guacamole?

Minnie Ovens

Austin Barry
April 1st, 2010 7:32am

Ooooh, Austin, you are a one.

The Laughing Cavalier

Emil, Woodward is no toff, in fact he's rather common. But he did marry a rich tradesman's daughter with a very big trust fund. Hence the butler. Her money, not his.

John Bracewell

Good Luck, Sarah Hill, anyone opposing anything to do with Mandelslime is worth supporting, even though it is a tongue-in-cheek endorsement from a Spectator commenter.

Michael Booth

Mmmmmmmmmmm

Michael Booth

mmmmmmmmmm but will Tristram's seat really be safe...

Nigel Ford

I've never understood why the Labour politicians send their kids to private schools (in this case Tristram's father) normally the likes of Blair and Harman cream off the best state schools (eg faith schools and grant maintained) which is bad enough.

These people are just hypocrites of the highest order (the exception being David Blunkett, even if he was a lousy minister). I saw Tristram on Newsnight last night and he made George Osborne look common.

Good luck to the BNP.

wiggins

Is he one of the Berkshire Hunts?