Mandelson’s fixation with bananas repays study: it shows that he has not really changed
Bananas on the mind. It’s Mandelson’s fault. There I was at the weekend, reading an interview with him in the Times. This was the new Mandelson, Lord Mandelson, the one who longs to go on Strictly Come Dancing, and only wears those soft cashmere jumpers, you can tell, to boost the impression that he could give you a kindly and wonderful hug. It was working. I was warming to the man. And then bananas. Bananas everywhere.
How did Gordon Brown lure him back into government? ‘We sat down,’ he told the newspaper, ‘over a couple of sandwiches, a yogurt and a banana. I should have seen the telltale signs they were trying to corrupt me.’
Corrupt him? Peter Mandelson? With sandwiches, yogurt and a banana? You’d think you’d need something grander. A house, maybe. But still, at that point my thoughts remained idle. Just a weird thing about bananas. No biggie.
Two paragraphs later, though, he goes to see Blair. ‘I arrived at Tony’s office and he said, “Gordon’s just been on the phone.” I said, “What? You as well?” He said, “No, you banana, it’s you.”’
The second banana. Ooof. Had me reeling. That’s a pattern. One weird banana from Peter Mandelson just raises eyebrows. Two weird bananas can only raise suspicions. Although of what, I just can’t figure out. But it must be something. There must be a reason. Forked tongues never slip.
The first time I went on television, I promised my girlfriend I’d say the word ‘penguin’. I think a lot of people do this kind of thing. I didn’t manage it that time, because it was late at night, we were talking about Trident and I was rather out of my element (as would have been… a penguin?). But for how it ought to work, I refer you to John Prescott. On the Daily Politics a few months ago, he deftly managed to say ‘coconut’ after making a promise on his blog, and without making any less sense than normal. Maybe that’s what Mandelson was up to with his bananas.
But maybe not. Mandy and bananas have a long and expansive history. Call me paranoid, call me a stalker, but I looked into it. In 2002, a man dressed as a monkey and promising a free banana to every schoolchild was elected Mayor of Hartlepool. The Big Banana himself (then Hartlepool’s MP) was supporting somebody else. ‘The free banana offer has a serious side,’ insisted the Monkey Mayor afterwards, but it was too late. Mandelson was already lobbying, ultimately successfully, for the editor of the monkey-supporting local paper to be sacked.
Two years later, and Mandelson was off to Brussels. And what occupied much of his time, as EU trade commissioner? You guessed it. Things came to a grisly head with the World Trade Organisation Doha talks last year. ‘Bringing bananas into Geneva this week,’ he said, at the time, ‘is a thought that fills people with fear and anxiety.’ The banana talks duly collapsed, and Mandelson started edging back home. That was when Brown gave him a banana and Blair called him one. Coincidence? And I’m a monkey’s uncle.
And what about David Miliband? That infamous picture from the Labour party conference? The banana skin that killed a career, even though it was still wrapped around a banana? Some people reckon that it was only Miliband’s bendy yellow destruction that gave Brown the confidence to bring Mandelson back. Could be. Although, now we know that ‘banana’ signifies ‘Mandelson’ in New Labour circles, this could be the wrong way around entirely. This could be the last true Blairite in the Cabinet, forlornly sending out a beacon. One thinks of an early Christian in Rome, bravely brandishing a fish.
I could be wrong. In fact, I’m almost certainly wrong. The closer one looks, the less clear it all gets. There is clearly some link between Mandelson and bananas, but what? Whether bananas happen to Peter Mandelson, or Peter Mandelson happens to bananas, we shall maybe never know. Perhaps he is indeed bound by some Prescott-style Faustian promise to say ‘banana’ at every opportunity, and Hartlepool politics, global free trade and the Labour party just bear the scars. Or perhaps bananas dog his every step, inexplicably, to the extent that he fears he may be mad. Either way, this could happen with nobody else. Newly cuddly or not, Mandelson has not changed. Even with bananas, one looks to him and sees mystery and conspiracy; truth behind truth. There’s something going on here beneath the skin. There always is.
I am troubled, and perhaps more than I should be, by reports of Barack Obama keeping his new, super-secure Blackberry in a holster. A grown man, clearly, should only wear a holster if he is also carrying a pistol. I know some people disagree on this, notably most of the Swiss and some people with small cameras, but Obama should really know better. It changes everything about the man. Once you spot it, you start to look at him differently. The way he holds his elbows. The movement of his Adam’s apple. The fact that he almost certainly can’t dance. Don’t be fooled by the foxy wife. He’s a geek.
It’s these little chips in a man’s façade that allow you to see his soul. Recently, for example, I have become fixated by George Osborne’s ties. It’s not the fabric or the style. It’s something to do with the way he ties them. Just below the knot, somehow, they always get really narrow. I doubt he even knows that he’s doing it, but it looks too old, too posh and too Tory, and I’m convinced that people would like him more if it didn’t happen. Similarly, Dominic Grieve’s big problem is the way that he always puts flouncy handkerchiefs in his outer breast pocket, and always appears to have gone to some effort to make sure they match his tie. Almost imperceptibly, it stops him from looking like a man worth listening to.
On most fronts, Obama does have a curious licence to break the rules. This, I guess, was what ‘yes we can’ was all about. On torture, Iran, terrorism, Cuba, Europe and global warming, I’m as impressed as anybody at his willingness to throw convention from the window and wipe the slate clean. But a Blackberry in a holster? That is an audacity too far.
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