Mandelson on the attack- "parish pump politicians for a global age".

Peter Mandelson has also been on the campaign trail this morning attacking David Cameron as having only "warm words and bonhomie".

Speaking to the Progress and the Foreign Press Association he told the audience that Labour was determined now, unlike the Conservatives, not to put a fragile recovery at risk.

Britain needs a government with the credentials to seize this progressive moment. I know that when David Cameron became Tory leader he tried to lay claim to these credentials. But either he was insincere or the task proved too great. Either way, Mr Cameron has not transformed his party.

He reminded the audience that the Conservatives led the deregulatory charge, starting with Big Bang in the mid-1980s and laying the blame for the financial crisis at the door of Gordon Brown was sheer folly.

Labour he says “get it” about the modern world and have a basic instinct for fairness and this is vital in difficult times.Whereas the Tories were " parish pump politicians for a global age.

He accused David Cameron and George Osbourne as having a “bargain basement” approach to competitiveness?

At their age, David Cameron and George Osborne have spent their whole adult lives in the most ideological Tory party in history. They spent the 80s saying “there is no alternative” and presumably they still believe it.

Spin all the way

A fabulous bit of commentary from the Spectator's James Forsyth on Peter Mandelson's press conference yesterday

As so often since his return to British politics, Mandelson delivered lines that were so memorable that they were bound to make it into copy. He said that the Tories “would strangle the recovery at birth”, that David Cameron was “bobbing around like a cork in water”, and that George Osborne was the Tories’ “weakest link”. As I type, Mandleson’s sound bites are being replayed yet again on News 24

It's Mandelson v Osborne time again

This should make for an interesting PMQ's.

Peter Mandelson has just released a statement about George Osborne's allegations yesterday

“There is a very unattractive pattern of behaviour that is starting to emerge with George Osborne, of innuendo in pursuit of a smear.
Yesterday George Osborne issued a very serious allegation that the Prime Minister had intervened to deny the opposition of information they were entitled to. This claim has been flatly denied by the Cabinet Secretary. I suggest George Osborne withdraws this deliberate untruth to avoid embarrassing his leader at Prime Minister’s Questions today”

via Paul Waugh

Are we returning to Yachtgate?

The price of loyalty

So according to John Kamphner in the Spectator,

Tony Blair is in debt to his New Labour friends for their efforts to get him off the hook

The main news is that Peter Mandelson's support was bought in return for protecting his old ally Tony Blair

Mandelson — on Blair’s behalf — set down specific conditions for the Iraq war inquiry. The deal, I am told, was explicit. Not only would the hearings be fully in private, but the committee would, as with Hutton, be manageable. Brown was instructed to ensure that the members of the inquiry would, in the words of one official, ‘not stir the horses’. Brown readily acquiesced. He was not in a position to do anything else. It was a done deal, even before James Purnell sent alarm bells through Downing Street with his resignation on the night of 4 June.

A marriage made in heaven-that's pre 1994 heaven

There is an interesting essay in this New Statesman for thosw who wsh to explore the relationship between Peter Mandelson and Gordon Brown in more depth.

Donald Macintyre asks

How did Mandelson’s sworn enemy come first to bring him back into government and then to locate him as primus inter pares among his ministers?

and it goes back a long way

it is easy to forget now the cohesiveness of this triangle, before John Smith’s death in 1994, that had gradually formed since the “discovery” of Mandelson as Labour’s communications director, and the subsequent promotion of the backbenchers Brown and Blair as early as the run-up to the 1987 election. Alex Stevenson, working as a young researcher for Mandelson, recalled that, during 1993, when the group felt relatively isolated as “modernisers”, there were “incessant” telephone calls from Blair and Brown, but that those from Brown were even more frequent. The three men’s closeness – with a largely unspoken understanding that Brown was the leading figure of the three – can scarcely be exaggerated. Probably no one but Mandelson and Brown remembers that it was the latter who painstakingly advised the former on his crucial speech to the selection conference that chose him as parliamentary candidate for Hartlepool in 1989 – and actually wrote the peroration of it.

Marr is savaged

Watching Andrew Marr come up against the prince of Darkness this morning was a lesson to all political journalists when conducting a serious interview.

Marr was,for want of a better expression taken to the cleaners by the man who invented spin.

He missed several opportunities to score hits instead resorting to a diatribe of rumour and innuendo which Mandleson was easily able to brush aside.

To be sat opposite the interviewee being told,quite bluntly "right next question" must have been an excruciatingly awful experience for Marr who has lost his political bite since being propelled out of his political role at the Beeb and becoming 'mainstream.'

Mandelson harks back to the macro management days

Peter Mandelson's interview in this morning's FT throws up the fact that the business secretary is impressed with the French industrial policy.

Talking to Peggy Hollinger after meeting business leaders in Paris he says that

“We have something to learn from continental practice without falling into the pitfalls of second-guessing business,”

adding that France

was better at “setting strategic goals and objectives”, as it had done in the energy sector by promoting nuclear power, in transport by creating the infrastructure for high-speed trains and in the aerospace industry.

This is bound to open up the debate that Mandelson will try to revert to a policy of greater state intervention in the economy,maybe even along the lines of macro management.

John Prescott's reaction to Guacamolegate

Ht-Radio 4 PM Blog

Pea green soup or custard

"I don't want to get up early in the morning and throw custard at Peter Mandelson but I don't have a choice because democracy has failed us.

says the perpetrator of the Green custard incident this morning

Enough said

Ht-Sky news

The Royal Mail rebellion moves on

Paul Waugh has a scope over at the Standard.

He says that the rebellion over the post office has now moved to his department of business.

The updated list of signatories to the Labour rebels' EDM on Royal Mail shows that Sian James - PPS to Trade Minister Gareth Thomas - has joined the opposition to Peter Mandelson's plan.

Mandleson's doubts on Britain being best placed

I ahve to agree with Peter Hoskin writing yesterday at Coffee House.

It appears that Peter Mandleson maybe laying the foundations for the government having a change of heart over Britain being best placed to ride the economic storm.

He writes this article in the Wall Street Journal which includes the passage

Like all advanced economies, the U.K. has taken an early hit from a credit crunch that began with a serious failure in financial markets -- perhaps even more than most because of its large financial-services sector. Its high levels of consumer spending are now subject to a sharp adjustment as people and families retrench and focus their resources on repaying debt.

Did Mandelson get a bad Americano?

The Times is reporting this morning,the Trade Secretary's comments made last night as he attached Starbuck's chairman Howard Schultz.

Upset by Shultz's comments that

“The concern for us is Western Europe and specifically the UK. The UK is in a spiral.”

Mandleson is reporting as saying

“Why should I have that guy running down the country? Who the **** is he?”.

Well he is a man who has built up the world wide coffee chain so probably knows a little bit about business and although the chain is presently suffering a downturn he comes with a massive reputation.

According to First Post

Mandelson’s attack had been simmering all day as he had been in the same television show when Schultz made the remarks. As soon as he got on air he rebutted the claims, but he left it until later in the day to release his full fury.

Mandleson understands the concerns.

He hasn't had the best couple of days since the wildcat strikes hit the headlines.

He has just given a statement to the Lords on the crisis,if we can call it that

"We are determined to see the robust enforcement of the employment
rights legislated in this parliament…and the mobility of labour which
has always been an intrinsic part of the EU.

adding that

"At a difficult economic time we fully understand the anxieties people
have about their jobs. It would be quite wrong and indeed against the
law to allow companies to advertise jobs and not consider British
workers. We have now established a mechanism, through ACAS, to examine
these concerns."

Via Politics Home

When is a bail out not a bail out?

Answer-when it is a government backed loan scheme apparently.

The problem for the government over yesterday's announcement was that it had been hyped up since October as the answer to all of the industry's problems.Following the American announcement on their industry,the speculation had exceeded all reasonable expectations.

Mandleson's proposals had a number of constraint's placed upon them before they could be agreed.Firstly the government was limited in the amount of state aid that could be given by EC regulation.

Secondly the growing pressure on public finances would have meant that any additional borrowing would have broaden the calls that teh country was going bankrupt.Mandleson was at pains in the Lords to repeat that this was not additional funding but cash that the chancellor has already allowed for.

Thirdly critics would have said what distinguishes the car indutry from any other.The Government is already seeing signs that continued pumping of money into the banks is turned the electorate's opinion.This would have added to the criticisms and in addition other industries would have said well why not is then?

Peter Mandleson is to meet the,by all accounts this morning,disappointed car industry leaders and unions later today.

Writing in the Times Carl Mortished says that

compared with the £600 billion package of loan guarantees made available to the banks, it looks more like a thimbleful.
Britain's motor industry will get access to £2.3 billion in loans, a fraction of the $17 billion US scheme and less than half what is promised across the Channel, where the bailout will include equity capital rather than just loans.

That seems to be the general consensus this morning but as the FT says

Peter Mandelson will hope to secure a more enthusiastic response when he meets the motor industry on Wednesday. The business secretary can argue that he has fought the sector’s corner, persuading the Treasury to agree the UK’s first support package for a non-financial sector in this recession.

Watch out Mandleson is back

There is a lot of talk around Martin Kettle's article in this morning's Guardian about Peter Mandleson.

According to Martin,

Politically, Mandelson is the man of the hour. His re-entry into British politics may not have transformed Labour's standing - a glance at the polls reminds one not to exaggerate - and his current allure may not last long if things turn worse, as they may. It has been a remarkable metamorphosis all the same

Mr Kettle believes that Mandleson has

regained his commanding political position

and that he

has also moved up a gear as a political thinker after his years in the European Commission

Taking these thoughts to the extreme,will 18 months give him enough time to metamorphise the fortunes of the Labour party?

Mandleson and Osborne meet again

A scoop from Iain Martin who is at the Spectator Parliamentarian of the year award.

George Osborne and Peter Mandelson have been put on the same table at the Spectator Parliamentarian of the year lunch just kicking off at Claridges.
The last time they met for lunch it was in Corfu and the results were pretty explosive.
Neither has arrived yet. Let's see if they are willing to sit down and break bread together. Or will one of them insist on being moved? More later.

Is Mandleson plotting an early election?

Whilst all eyes are focused on America,Iain Martin believes that certain people are plotting electorally on this side of the water.

The words "early election" are being mentioned in Labour circles. The theory is that this is being planned by the Dark Lord (Peter Mandelson, for it is he, the Real Deputy Prime Minister, First Mate on the SS Russian Oligarch, chief adviser to the First Lord of the Treasury and all round strategic whizz.) It is said by his admirers that he has worked out that Brown has no hope if he waits for an election in 2010 (when the economy will be deep in a long recession) and that going next April or May allows Brown to win a mandate to fight the recession against a Tory party which may not even by that point have worked out what its economic policy is. Some senior Tories are worried that their leadership is far too complacent.

Some truth perhaps?

Well there is no doubt that the architect of New Labour is not going to stand by and watch his baby vanish from under his eyes.It is also probably correct to assume that after 18 months of recession,the electorate are highly unlikely to vote for Brown

Osborne made a mistake but is their something more sinister going on

Do read Melissa Kite's feature in the Spectator this week.

It gives an excellent account of the Corfugate affair and wonders why Rosthchild reacted in such a way

But the impression remains that there must be some other reason why Mr Rothschild reacted in the way he did. Personal animosity can run deep between boyhood friends. It is never easy to see an old contemporary in a position of power. Maybe Mr Rothschild contemplates his old Bullingdon chum as Chancellor of the Exchequer in a few years time and cannot quite see it. Possibly he remembers a curly-haired geek in a dodgy waistcoat cavorting around Oxford and thinks: Nah! Or perhaps Mr Rothschild, an influential figure in the banking world who sits on advisory panels, has good reason to support his contacts in the Labour party rather than stand by his Tory friends two years from an election. Rumours abound that he acted after a phone call from Tony Blair urging him to intervene on Mandelson’s behalf.

But she belives rather tellingly that the ramifications for Mandleson may be greater

On the surface are allegations surrounding Mandelson’s decision to remove a punitive 14.9 per cent import tariff on aluminium foil damaging Deripaska’s aluminium company Rusal. As EU Trade Commissioner he signed off a deal in December 2005 to remove it. When asked about his links with the Russian this week, Mandelson’s press officer in Brussels only admitted to meetings in 2006 and 2007 and said there could therefore have been no conflict of interest in the decision to drop the tariff. But it has since emerged that Mandelson had dinner with Deripaska in Moscow in January 2005, along with Rothschild.

Mandleson the cluster bomb turns his attention to the Tories

Some profound words from Martin Bright over at his New Statesman blog

Lord Mandelson is like a political cluster bomb. Since he arrived back in Britain less than a month ago he has shown that he has lost none of his ability to attract the most explosive controversy. But his years in Brussels appear to have brought a new edge. With previous scandals, over his home loan from the then Labour paymaster general, Geoffrey Robinson, or his troubled relationship with the Indian billionaires the Hinduja brothers, he was content to bring only his own party into disrepute. This time his activities look set to drag in the opposition as well

.

Could have put it better myself

The knives into Mandleson

It didn't take long for the media to start digging the dirt on Peter Mandleson and this morning's Sunday Times makes the first move

It reports that the new business minister

gave trade concessions worth up to £50m a year to Russia’s richest man who has entertained him on his superyacht.
The encounter on the 238ft yacht, Queen K, in Corfu this summer was the latest in a series of social meetings between Mandelson and Oleg Deripaska — known as the “king of aluminium” — during the politician’s term as European Union trade commissioner.
In the past three years Mandelson twice acted to cut European aluminium import duties. Deripaska’s company Rusal, the world’s largest producer of aluminium, was one of the main beneficiaries

Meanwhile many of the papers are reporting his alleged pay off from his role as EU commissioner,this from the Independent

Peter Mandelson will pick up a £1m "golden goodbye" package following his departure from Brussels, despite walking out after serving only four years as Britain's European Commissioner.
The new Business Secretary will receive a £104,000 salary as a minister in the House of Lords, and qualifies for a total of £234,000 in "transitional payments" over the next three years to help him readjust to life outside the European Commission.
But he is also guaranteed an EU pension when he reaches 65 – in 2018 – starting at £31,000 a year and rising in line with the cost of living. The overall cost of funding such a pension is put at £750,000.