POLITICS
A Secretary of State who is unfit to remain in office
BRUCE ANDERSON
Even if Peter Mandelson left politics tomorrow, his place in history would be secure. He helped to make Tony Blair Labour's leader and was second only to Mr Blair as the architect of Labour's 1997 victory. Three years into government, despite vicissi- tudes and an unimpressive ministerial record, he is still one of the most important members of the Blair team, with a crucial influence on the basic Blairite project: re-election.
Forget the official Cabinet placement. The real pecking-order in the Blair adminis- tration runs as follows: Tony Blair 1, Alas- tair Campbell 2, Gordon Brown and Charlie Falconer 3rd equal, Jonathan Powell 5, Jack Straw and Peter Mandelson 6th equal. Mr Mandelson would be higher still if he were a good minister, but there is still a long gap before all the rest, seated well below the salt, who may as well rank themselves according to the sonorousness of their empty dignities.
Mr Mandelson has a further distinction. He was the first Blairite. There was an ado- lescent flirtation with leftism, but before Tony Blair had even been heard of — long before he let his CND membership lapse Peter Mandelson knew that Labour faced a choice: electability or death. He also knew what had to be done. The Labour party had a long, colourful, romantic past. Someone had to take all that history and dump it in the nearest skip.
Peter Mandelson was happy to volunteer for the role of hangman of history, and he had the two essential qualifications for the task: ignorance and ruthlessness. The only history he seems to know is that Herbert Morrison was his grandfather; the only the- ory, the Morrisonian dictum that socialism is what a Labour government does. So he could travel light in his pursuit of power. To understand Mr Mandelson, it is necessary to watch him say 'power'. As he does so, a look of intense satisfaction spreads across his features while he rolls the word around his palate, savouring every milligram.
Peter Mandelson is an intellectually superficial opportunist, which has led many observers to conclude that he has no core beliefs. Not so, and at the end of last week we caught a glimpse of them with his com- ments on the Household Division.
The sheer insolent silliness of those remarks has attracted most public attention, and rightly so. Nor is this the first time that Peter Mandelson has displayed a lack of judgment. He did so throughout the Robin- son mortgage saga, from which he has escaped surprisingly lightly, thus far. He did so back in the summer of 1997, when he was left to run the No. 10 machine while the Blairs were in Tuscany. He promptly spent a fortnight swanking around the place telling everyone he was in charge and mightily pro- voking John Prescott. But it was not only Mr Prescott who displayed annoyance. On his return, Tony Blair said: 'Perhaps Peter isn't as good as we thought he was.'
In recent weeks, Mr Mandelson seemed determined to remind everyone of that comment. The job of Northern Ireland Sec- retary involves pressure, and press criticism. But a wise Ulster Secretary is wary of ta good press rather than surprised by a bad one. He must have the strength to set his course and stick to it, regardless of the crit- ics. It is not they but events which will prove him right or wrong.
But Mr Mandelson has seemed petulant under pressure and ridiculously sensitive to the papers. In a whimperingly self-pitying interview with the Sunday Telegraph a few weeks ago, he complained about the bad press he was getting; at that stage the news- papers had been largely favourable.
The same newspaper contained a number of digs about Jonathan Powell, the PM's chief of staff, who is closely involved in Ulster policy. It seemed that someone very close indeed to Peter Mandelson was unhappy that Mr Blair was paying so much attention to Mr Powell. This made Peter Mandelson sound a mere Mandy, a jealous fourth-former unable to attract the geogra- phy mistress's smiles. Whoever organised that briefing had no regard for the dignity of Peter Mandelson's office.
Nor, however, does Mr Mandelson, for the latest misjudgment was so grotesque as to eclipse all the others. There was also a piquancy. In opposition, Mr Mandelson was a ruthless exponent of Blairite discipline. Over the years many members of the shad- ow Cabinet felt the lash of his tongue, often for the most trifling lapses in deportment. One of the few who escaped his wrath was Mo Mowlam. Mr Mandelson knew that Dr Mowlam, who is at least a woman of spirit, would have responded with an invitation to consider the possibilities of sex and travel. Then and now, however, Peter Mandelson deplored Mo Mowlam's sloppiness, yet even she never said anything half as sloppy as Mr Mandelson's comment about 'chinless wonders . . . sort of swapping colours and doing . . . things with flags'.
There is little point in heaping ignominy on Mr Mandelson. He himself has already done so. There is certainly no need to defend the Household Division. Just as `contemptible' does not seem strong enough to describe Mr Mandelson's comments, so `courage' and 'sacrifice' seem equally insuf- ficient when it comes to the Guards. No grandeur of language would be adequate to write those regiments' histories, which are best appreciated, not through the halting medium of words, but amid the fifes and drums, while the blue and scarlet and gold glory in the sunlight as the Colours are paraded and saluted. Those Colours are interwoven with the regiments' battle hon- ours, won at some of the proudest and also the most desperate moments in this coun- try's history, paid for in heroism and in blood. Yet we have a secretary of state who merely sees chinless wonders doing things with flags. It would be about as much use explaining 'battle honour' to Peter Mandel- son as it would be explaining Titian to a man who had been blind from birth. Unlike its physical equivalent, however, moral blindness is censurable. Peter Mandelson knew that Mo Mowlam was not fit to hold high office. Neither is he.
But his real offence is far deeper than a mere betise. Any such statement invites only one conclusion: that its author must dislike Great Britain very much indeed. Its history and traditions must be meaningless to him, if not repugnant. It follows, there- fore, that anyone holding such attitudes must distrust the great majority of the British people, who deplore them. The phe- nomenon of the anti-patriotic left-liberal intellectual has been well documented; Peter Mandelson, though not much of an intellectual, is only the latest example. But there is a difference between him and most of his predecessors, who had little power to harm the country they disliked. Mr Mandel- son has not only motive, but means and opportunity. A fanatical Europhile, he can- not wait for the day that the British history which he finds so alien joins Labour's histo- ry in the skip.
For Mr Mandelson would be quite happy to watch soldiers doing things with flags, on one condition. The flags in question should have 12 stars on a blue background.
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