ANOTHER VOICE

How Mr Blair's beauty makes Mr Mandelson (and others) ugly

MATTHEW PARRIS

Metaphor should hardly be drawn from the kitchen. If an essayist can't stand the heat he should get out of the library, and no writer who knows his onions should pepper his prose with the old chestnuts of stale cliché. But where else shall we find imagery adequate to the Prime Minister's Teflonic ability to pop up unsinged from the political toaster, while colleagues crawl from the soup to the frying-pan to the fire? The cupboard of imagery is bare.

Or so I thought — until I linked the mir- acle with what had at first seemed an unre- lated mystery. The nation's reluctance to blame Tony Blair for anything is a through- the-looking-glass reflection of our desire to blame Peter Mandelson for everything. Poor Mr Mandelson has even been hissed on Newsnight.

Everything about the Minister without Portfolio seems to annoy us. He appears behind each imagined plot. When he speaks we satirise him, when he remains silent we deplore his secretiveness. We jeered when he had a moustache and sneered when he cut it off. His intonation is studied by mimics, his pallor deplored by cosmeticians, his suits mocked for their expensive cut.

He has been drawn with horns by car- toonists and elevated in caricature to the status of Dark Angel. Television imperson- ators insinuate that he knows where we live, where our children go to school; if we leave our bedroom windows open he may steal us from our beds; if we criticise New Labour something may happen to our kids. At the twitch of his eyebrow, birds fall from the sky. Serious columnists speculate on his behind-the-scenes powers of manipulation. He is, we hear, the arch-fixer, never far from the Prime Minister's shoulder, pour- ing poison in his ear.

His own projects are hated at once. Half Britain is hoping the Millennium Dome falls down. This autumn his own party denied him membership of its National Executive Committee. For much of the nation, Peter Mandelson has become Lucifer, Machiavelli, Iago, Rasputin and the Antichrist. If it were possible to link him with the death of Diana a plot would even now be being whispered.

And if our fire is directed first at Peter Mandelson, Lord Irvine of Lairg, the Lord Chancellor, has now been caught in the crossfire. The soi-disant Cardinal Wolsey of our age, Lord Irvine finds his wallpaper the subject of speculation and his ambitions the object of fear. I have myself compared him with the doll in Child's Play 3.

Around these demons flits a more ambigu- ous cast, all of doubtful virtue. We suspect Gordon Brown of a secret plot to abolish the pound. Something about David Blunkett chills the blood; Frank Dobson, the bearded Health Secretary, is pilloried; and Harriet Harman draws scorn wherever she goes. Margaret Beckett is lampooned, John Prescott patronised, Robin Cook suspected, Ron Davies (the Welsh Secretary) blamed as a bully and Jack Straw distrusted as the policeman's friend. Lord Simon and Geof- frey Robinson are fingered in the financial pages. Among government backbenchers, the Left are hissed for plotting and the loyal- ists mocked for creeping. All, to some observers and in some degree, are resented.

But never Mr Blair. He's a pretty straight guy — we have his own word for it. Though commentators tease a bit and others raise an eyebrow, the Prime Minister's approval rat- ings soar. No peacetime premier has ever been so popular. The new government's wobbles over the summer never touched its first minister's high standing (though Mr Mandelson was blamed for media manipula- tion). Five increases in interest rates have not harmed him (though Gordon Brown's missing hand at the interest-rate tiller is questioned). The fuss over Formula One sponsorship makes scarcely a scratch on Blair's polish (though Tessa Jowell, who actually advised against the exemption, has seen her reputation all but torn apart).

Mr Blair is saving Britain, guiding Europe and helping the Queen. Mr Mandelson is bullying the press, twisting the truth and poi- soning the political wellsprings. Odd, really, because Mr Blair appointed Mr Mandelson and will shortly promote him. The two men like and trust each other and work together. A disjunction, surely? How do we square the adoration of Tony Blair with the execration of his lieutenants?

Scholars of Russian history tell me the Tsar was helped by a similar disjunction. Known as the 'Little Father' and adored for his supposed love for his subjects, he was not held culpable when his government bore heavily on the peasantry. They would blame his advisers. In the popular imagina- tion, the Tsar was regrettably surrounded by the velmozhie — the 'great' people. These great ones gave him bad advice and blocked from his ears the cries of the mass- es, the small people.

To compare Mr Blair and the Tsar is tempting, but I think our own leader is bet- ter placed. A tsar was no more than shield- ed by his velmozhie, and then only partially. But this Prime Minister seems inversely to flourish as his velmozhie wither, as though by some strange process of political dialysis his own toxins were being filtered out by his lieutenants, the very process by which he is purified poisoning them.

Wilde's imagination understood best. Up in our new government's attic stands not one but multiple pictures of Dorian Blair. There is Dorian Cook, Dorian Robinson, Dorian Harman, but foremost among them Dorian Mandelson. As the Prime Minis- ter's complexion glows, their images yellow. As his eyes burn bright, Miss Harman's seem to deaden. As his new suit shimmers, Mr Brown's crumples. As his brow shines unfurrowed and clear, Mr Cook's wrinkles. And Mr Mandelson's picture is utterly rav- aged. Every prime-ministerial sin strikes another crease into the features of the Min- ister without Portfolio. The unblemishing of Mr Blair blemishes all around him, but most of all it blemishes Peter Mandelson.

The reason Wilde spoke of a picture of Dorian Gray, rather than a portrait, is that the Victorians believed a portrait captured the soul; a picture recorded the features alone. Tony Blair embodies new Labour's soul; his government shows us only its fea- tures. Features decay. Soul persists. So Mr Blair will not grow old as they grow old. The age shall not weary him, nor the press condemn.

Matthew Parris is parliamentary sketchwriter and a columnist of the Times.