Mandelson's miscalculation

Chris Morriss

Sister Souljah? Not being a black American, I had to look this up on Google. Come on, this is a Spectator audience you're writing for, not the inhabitants of some dingy Hip-Hop dive.

mr ugly

Perhaps he's calculated that Labour will now spend as long in the wilderness as the Conservatives did after 1997, and that it is therefore not viable as a vehicle for his own future advancement. I don't see that you've shown this to be a miscalculation.

Simon Stephenson

I think you underestimate how much of what is happening is by design. I should have thought that the central strategy of Labour Party planners is to create and enhance the thought that the 2010 rejection was due to the flaws of the old guard, and that as far as this baggage can be uncoupled from the new guard, the more the better. Naturally, there must be an authentic-looking pretense going on of the old guard fighting for their reputations, but in the end the concert-party has already dictated that the likes of Blair, Brown and Mandelson will not try too hard to destabilise the desired image of a new leadership comprising all that was good about its predecessors, but none of what was less good.

Remember that for a very long time the political left has drawn much of its support from prejudiced neophilia, so it's hardly likely to neglect the opportunity to do so now.

Edward Sutherland

Chris Morriss: could you please share your knowledge; I haven't a clue who/what a "sister souljah" is - a squaddie's female sibling on enlistment, perhaps?

Verity

Edward Sutherland - I'm not interested in American black slang. It's never very inventive.

Widmerpool

Is Mandy looking for a Goat as well as an evergreen gong from Dave and Nick? He could still do a lot of damage to Labour if he crossed benches in the Lords!

Dimoto

There was a discussion on Radio4 this morning in which the punditry were expressing incredulity that given Blair's reported opinion on Brown, he would then endorse him for party leader and PM.

It seems to have been overlooked, that Blair won three elections for Labour, then was forced out with considerable acrimoney.
Who can forget that campaign scene with Blair sheepishly buying an ice-cream for a distainful Brown ?

Isn't it pretty clear that a bitter Blair was telling his ungrateful party, OK you want Brown, good, you can have him, and bear the consequences !

Duppy Seacole

Yo speccie homies, check dis out:

In United States politics, a Sister Souljah moment is a politician's public repudiation of an allegedly extremist person or group, statement, or position perceived to have some association with the politician or their party. Such an act of repudiation is designed to signal to centrist voters that the politician is not beholden to traditional, and sometimes unpopular, interest groups associated with the party, although such a repudiation runs the risk of alienating some of the politician's allies and the party's base voters. The term is named for the political activist Sister Souljah.

Origins
The term originates in the 1992 presidential candidacy of Bill Clinton. In a Washington Post interview published on May 13, 1992, the hip-hop MC, author, and political activist Sister Souljah was quoted as saying, "If Black people kill Black people every day, why not have a week and kill White people?"[1] The remark was part of a longer response to the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The quotation resulted in criticism.

Craig Strachan

Ed Miliband says " I have never knowingly been on a shooting party or a yacht with a Russian oligarch but what people do with their lives is a matter for them."

This statement leaves open the intriguing possibility that Ed may in fact have been on a yacht with a Russian oligarch or on a shooting party without knowing it.

TrevorsDen

mandelson is in no way goung to 'cross the floor' and he would be turned away if he did.

And there should certainly be no 'grandfathering'. Not only should the Lords be elected but existing life peers should have their peerages revoked.

Verity

Craig Strachan - V good!

Andrew Zalotocky

What has Mandelson got to lose? Labour may well spend a decade or more in the wilderness, and if they do get back in sooner they would be desperate to avoid reminding people of the Blair and Brown years. Mandelson would be a political liability because he would remind the public of all the things they disliked about New Labour. He has virtually no chance of ever being part of the British government again. Equally, while he might be able to land a sinecure in the EU bureaucracy it wouldn't be anything nearly as grand as European Commissioner.

So Mandelson's political career is really over. He can choose to sit in the Lords and fade into obscurity, or re-invent himself as a political commentator. The latter would keep him in the public eye and give him more influence over the future direction of the Labour party, because members of the Shadow Cabinet could listen to his advice without worrying about whether he was plotting to take their jobs.

Roger Johansen

I agree that the Lords should be elected, and the first to be removed from the Lords to make room should be those loathesome, arrogant politicians who were parachuted in to prop up the dying Labour administration.

Hysteria

Craig - brilliant. All sorts of mental images conjured up now!

Major Plonquer 1

Peter Mandelson is not a factional fig. He is a fictional fag. And now I'm sure you'll agree he's finally achieved his position as a colossus in the anals of the Labour Party.

Major Plonquer 1

Mandelson is, as he so famously said, a ‘fighter not a quitter.’

Really? I was listening that morning and I'll swear he stated, 'I'm a shiter not a shitter'. I thought he was making some kind of metaphorical statement about his physical role in homosexual relationships...