When GQ editor Dylan Jones hired Peter Mandelson as a columnist for the men’s magazine in 2001, he was accused of trying to head off criticism that the publication, which was adorned with racy celebrity shoots at the time, was going downmarket. However, little did Jones know that his highbrow hire was actually a… celebrity!
Speaking at a News Academy event at Hay, Jones revealed that he discovered only after signing Mandelson how big the Labour politician’s ego really was:
‘I remember learning something when we hired Peter Mandelson to write a column for us. I think he’d just been fired by the government for the second time, I courted him for a while and then he started writing a column for us. For a while it was good and he wrote a great piece about how there would never really be peace in Ireland, so he – or whoever was writing his column – was doing a pretty good job.’
Alas things took a turn for the worse after half a year and Jones had to intervene:
‘After about six months the quality started to fall away so I took him for lunch and I tried to explain to him that he needed to be more passionate about things. I said: “you should write about the media, I mean you’ve been treated so badly by the media Peter you really have, you’ve been vilified in print – imagine if you were a celebrity?” And he grabbed my arm in the middle of the restaurant and said “but I am a celebrity”. There was no hint of irony whatsoever.’
Suffice to say Mandelson no longer writes for the Gentlemen’s Quarterly.
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