The Real Peter Mandelson

on for now the rise and fall of one of New Labour's brightest entrepreneurs the real Peter Mandelson [Music] I am very sorry that your meeting ended as it did but I think we have to recognize that you and I have reached the end of the road just three years ago at the height of his influence in New Labour Peter Mandelson wrote this letter of resignation to Tony Blair though presumed to be glacially calculating he is often shown a volatile side to his character this is the story of the two sides of Peter Mandelson and of one man's often unrequited love affair with the Labour Party [Music] the icecap Manderson exists because he is over aware of an underlying sensitivity brilliant slightly tormented very misunderstood never fazed by anything or anybody this middle-aged carefulness this neatness set against an incredible impulsiveness when the occasion took him a recklessness he's like our version a very country now really he's a really important when live the lives are in the bargain a beer people say about Peter that he's sort of Machiavelli and the Prince of Darkness but I've always thought that this one character he really reminds me of it's Jeeves in the Bertie Wooster stories because he is he's sort of shimmers into the room and it would be do you really think sir that tie Jeeves perhaps but with a darkly mysterious ability to cast a spell we asked one of Tony Blair's team to describe the undercover role Mandelson once performed for him under the codename Bobby I was the runner in in the office so I kind of generally answer the phones and did all the crap basic God things before there it's like a poltergeist Wow it's like saying they Bobby and it all kind of comes crumbling down the red roses the leap out of the Vols go no it didn't exist [Music] Peter Mandelson is a linchpin figure in the creation of new labor the idea that now dominates the British political landscape I've been researching his biography for the past 18 months talking to people who've been close to him and trying to unravel the Mandelson enigma the story starts here in Hampstead Garden Suburb where Mandelson was born on October the 21st 1953 the contrasts in Peter Mandelson may have their origin in the very different characteristics he inherited from his parents I think in many respects my brother took after my father certainly in terms of trauma gregariousness self-confidence sheer cheek in yet having said that I think Peter has inherited some of my mother's traits as well punctilious ness of the attention to detail the the getting it right and not tolerating half measures or jobs half done quiet elegant gracious softly spoken but with tremendous steel if you incurred my mother's disapproval you would know it mr. Herbert Morrison the new minister of home security and Admiral Sir Edward Evans make a tour of East London shelters Mandelson was born into the labour party his grandfather Herbert Morrison was one of the big labour figures of the era a senior minister in both the wartime coalition and in Atlas post-war government Mandelson sees the link as significant I think from a very early age I quickly became my grandfather's grandson but Morrison was actually quite a remote figure after his second marriage when Peter was just two the family saw little of him my brother's impression of Herbert was as much through stories he heard books he read things he saw on the television as they were through any direct contacts that he had with him another labour grandi loomed large in Mandelson's childhood he watched close neighbours Harold and Mary Wilson leaving for Downing Street after the 1964 election victory a year later the two Mandelson boys were invited to a family party inside number 10 the child Mandelson like his adult self was both very much liked and just a little feared he commanded great affection and great loyalty from his friends I think many of them were always slightly intimidated by him and there are times when I feel intimidated by him the family were fans of the radio program round the hall was brought to the wild frontier by the man they called the pallone ranger [Applause] my name is wild Alf pubes miles invented a character for his brother in the style of the show Peter reveled in it well sir Oswald swish was basically a fixer you know mr. Fixit the wheel idea the the cool operator and that's him his school reports revealed two sides of the teenage Mandelson at once idealistic and rather intolerant his headmaster saw him undertaking some great task on behalf of humanity but he became a rebel his closest friend at Hendon County grammar was Steve how the two boys organized a revolt against the school's prefect system during which they led the prefix in a mass resignation well after we'd all resigned a few weeks later a few days later they appointed some replacement prefix to fill our shoes and during the breaks if any of them were walking along this this corridor of blood for the playground then the the children down below would be chanting scab scab scab and whistling at them and booing the merciful thing and they had a pretty hard time of it actually right up to the time when the prefect system was finally abolished [Music] and I can clearly remember coming into this classroom and Peter was always sort of with a small group he was kind of entertaining if you like and one of the girls was sort of teasing Peter about you know you'll be Prime Minister one day and Peter was sort of laughing it off and the fact that were people slightly gathered round him is that right yes yes he did he did he did have a sort of certain degree of magnetism in a certain section of the school he wasn't by any means one of the lads I was a much more sort of sporty and very much one a very laddish and probably less mature than he was in fact I can clearly remember Peter standing by this radiator during break times chatting to teachers which is something that other people in the fourth and fifth year wouldn't simply never do just as his Bumba and his grandfather had in their youth Mandelson embarked on a flirtation with far left politics Powell and Mandelson joined the young Communist League Peter I would go out to Kilburn tube station which at that time on a Friday knife who was a fairly rough and ready place and hand out leaflets sell papers some sometimes someone would stand up and make a speech Peter and I standing there too young middle class school kids Stephanie the morning star must have been a curious sight we revealed his past identity to those working the same beat 30 years later Mendelson absolutely astonishing anyone please title could even think about someone that was the last person I thought this was the sixties what I mean with the big rock bands Peters favorite I don't remember Peter being into rock bands at all Andy Williams [Music] washington-area Williams fan it was a Dee Williams fan yes he would sing Moon River and things like yeah quite a good voice actually if you like that kind [Music] perhaps unusually Mandelson did translate his youthful idealism into something of practical worth a youth club in switch cottage owes much to the Prince of Darkness apart from getting stuck in and clearing the building of rubbish and getting covered in dirt and really helping out he also had rates of acute political mind already about how to get public support for the project Graham good then homeless even stayed at the Mandelson's for a year Peter's father Tony became the project's benefactor the practical side to the young Mandelson's idealism took him to africa after he left school for a year he worked for church aid projects in Tanzania then under the rule of the Socialist Julius nari his introspective letters home to Steve Howe show him ready to abandon communism in favour of mainstream labour politics he says sometimes I feel that I'm retaining the force and commitment of my ycl bred attitudes and beliefs but I'm just not having the opportunity to expound them or act on them and other times I feel that my revolutionary ardour is fading because I'm a bourgeois at heart and that people whose company I enjoy most those from a strictly bourgeois an intellectual background and that life I enjoy most doesn't exactly revolve around the class struggle he says later on in the letter sometimes I reasoned that Tanzanian socialism is tremendous and is the only hope for development but that socialism in England would be wholly impracticable and that we're living in an ideological cloud cuckoo-land in which England no more has a socialist future than a fly in the air it's quite prophetic after Oxford University Mandelson went to work for the TU C and became chairman of the British Youth Council in 1978 the council attended the world festival of youth in Havana the festival was communist dominated and the British team went to stand up for democracy now 24 Mandelson wrote tested his future role as right-hand man to the leader I was the one who handled the big meetings I bullied the delegation in public sense into taking the right position Peter however his job was behind the scenes making sure that the resolutions and all the rest of it came out right and he would come along and say to me okay what we've got to do is to get through resolution that says X and I would go on the platform in front of delegation of whatever it is 170 hundred eighty people and I would say this is what we're gonna do guys while other delegates partied Mandelson showed impressive discipline after the day was over he would go off to bed to prepare for the next day and we were sharing a room at this time and I would go off and party I'd show and I would then show up at 6 o'clock in the morning in in our room he'd just be waking up I'd be crashing her and he'd look at me pitying me as if I'd sort of you know you don't take this seriously at all do you he'd say back home Mandelson set out on a career within the Labour Party he became a councillor in Lambeth and a researcher for Labour's shadow transport team but there was another side to this rather serious young politician in the making but on a one-to-one basis or in a small group he had the capacity of absolutely being the center of attention and making you want to belong to the gang that he belonged to to be the recipient of all that gossip all those malicious witticisms those ways he had of characterizing giving nicknames to people absolutely brilliant way of reducing people to their essential nickname and you were a slight feel he was going to do it to you whilst enjoying enormous ly the fact that he did it to other people in 1982 at the age of 28 he went to work for London Weekend Television putting his political career on hold as labour fell increasingly under the influence of the less hello and good afternoon today weekend world looks at the mood of the notion that don't make programs like weekend world anymore weekend world was a program that took no hostages made no concessions to the pleasure of the viewer but went straight for what it thought was the intellectual heart of the big question weekend world commission a series of opinion surveys there were three of them one edition of weekend world produced by Peter Mandelson rather doggedly pursued the question of what voters really wanted from political parties the unsentimental analytical approach that he was asked to take when he was looking at problems for a television program was exactly what he needed to sit on one side all the old ideas about the Labour Party which were holding back other people in the party itself who were looking at the same problems many floaters continue to be alarmed by Labour's relationship with the trade unions which they feel dominate the party but with a reform of beginning under Neil Kinnock Mandelson was ready to try and turn his analysis of how Labour had to change into reality [Music] is my tie straight good morning and welcome speech anticipated excuse me I was wondering if you could tell me about these screens what no just roughly what they may know they're polycarbonate bulletproof I gather some people came here for a closer look at the stuff we wouldn't know about that anyhow well we're not authorized to give that sort of information it's just that someone said that these people could be using the same material to make car headlights youth in a bureau or something no I I don't know what you mean this stuff is designed to protect the president why would anyone wanna use it in headlights I think for too long the Labour Party his view television errs are persecutor well I want to use television as our tool is our servant Mandelson applied for the job of director of communications and the Labour Party with a plan to reform the party's image and a reference from John Prescott ominously for journalists he wrote that no slanted reporting should pass without our complaining persistently and to high levels if necessary only his appearance did not quite show the meticulousness that would subsequently become his trademark and I looked down because you could see under the table I was sitting not quite directly opposite in and he had powder blue socks on and his shoes hadn't been polished and I did recall that both Hattersley and I coming of course from the regimental school of politics in which he returned up with shoes that were less than shining there was a question about your character the interview committee was evenly split between the candidates of right and left until neil kinnock drew on the personal loyalty of two members of the left caucus I wanted to steer from Neel about what he wanted so I send him a note I wrote Manson and send it back we thought about this very carefully we weren't anxious to incur the wrath of the left's LED but on the other hand we wanted Neel to have the team that he wanted to win the election so we we both switched Mandelson arrived at the Labor Party convinced it needed to ditch many of its left-wing policies to win power he saw in Neil Kinnock a leader with the courage to do just that and he devoted himself to helping him he'd formed a picture of what his task for the day was before most of us had actually sort of finished dressing and had breakfast he was constantly whizzing between Woolworth Road Westminster that would just go on through the day spending time with people talking to people up in the press gallery usually ending up you know in kennix office nine ten o'clock at night you know late night curry takeaways God knows when he ever got to bear he also built a relationship with a party leader but nobody in that job had ever had before Peter went straight for the top and became indispensable to Neil Kenneth he offered a whole wave of redesigning the Labor Party and and a party leader couldn't really say no to that we've introduced a new campaigning emblem for the party an emblem which expresses the new vigor the new confidence of the party Mandelson made the leader central to the party's appeal it's the modern techniques the effective techniques that we've reintroduced to the Labour Party in which what my job is all about Labour's journey away from the left was to be forcibly impressed on journalists if he went along with what Peter wants and in the 80s it was primarily the way the party was changing and he used the newspapers as a vehicle to change the the party then you were part of the favored group if he gave someone a briefing and they wrote exactly as he breathed without deviation or contradiction the next few days other editors that other papers would get a call from Peter saying I could I draw my attention to be very very accurate very insightful report by so instead for such a paper so this person would have his reputation and low lauded throughout Fleet Street for doing as he was told you didn't go along with it then you would literally be sent to Siberia in terms of getting information Peter was watching this broadcast as it was going on he picked up the phone rang this guy's editor and so as soon as he came off Peter Allen ITN warth Road contacted headquarters to see how he'd done he had relayed back to him the fact there had been a complaint about what he said no it was too late to do anything about it it was a live report but he said that from there on he was always wary he always knew he had to be careful because Manson might be listening and mantels and might tell his bosses now there were occasions during the campaign when I thought I had to make a an informal representation to the broadcaster's about the treatment of the Labour Party and the treatment of our campaign in particular news bulletins but that was always conducted in a polite and civilized way at the 1988 labor conference Mandelson provided a textbook example of how to exercise control over the media 88 was significant because Neil Kinnock and y hat ously were being elected leader and deputy leader to acclaim and therefore the modernisation of the party could proceed what Peter wanted was for that very upbeat message to be the message that came over on the bulletins before party conference what I had done was take it to the next stage what is the next step in transformation and it was to abolish the block vote the trade union bloc vote the report was to be delivered from the conference safe I asked Peter being the polite person that I am could we have permission to do the pitch to come on the set because I know you know he doesn't usually like this and he said I'll fine yes that's great what are you going to be saying and myself as a fool actually I told him what we were going to say and when he heard this he screamed on the end of the phone get off my set you're not allowed on my set the editor took the phone from me while I was talking to Peter because he could obviously tell that this was a short conversation that was going on and Peter would have told him if you want this week to go smoothly ie you want access you want interviews you want information then you've got to do the story I want Neil Kinnock who will be arriving here at the conference hotel shortly his supporters are already celebrating they say his certain overwhelming victory in tomorrow's election it's proof that he has a mandate to modernize the party Julie Hall idea is absolutely fantastic Peter got exactly what he wanted Julie ended her piece to come on a very upbeat note and Peter gotta the conference off to a flying start I do remember that and I do remember that the action had been taken and then it was checked with me and put it colloquially I said that's right Sodom they want entertainment they can buy a ticket to the circus and so I entirely agreed with that I suppose I could have countermanded it if I didn't agree with it but I did Mandelson had a mission to demolish Labour's image as a party dominated by the unions and the left and he took risks to achieve it he cut through a lot of red tape and all fashioned structures to get what he wanted to do done and I think alienated people by doing that so he was a high-wire act he was a risk and you know he took the risk and eventually he paid the price Peter was doing what the leadership wanted and what they should really have been doing is attacking the leader or the leadership but it was easier to attack Peter and therefore Peter time and again drew the attack upon himself because he was a much easier target Mandelson's approach did aggravate some powerful figures and now I've read it in the paper but I can tell you what actually happened because I was sworn to secrecy you know the new 30 year secrecy rule the when we swore to secrecy and ban from saying anything critical about party or colleagues for 30 years unless it kasha Peter Mandelson and it's off the record the antipathy towards Mandelson as a middle-class metropolitan gave rise to one of the most enduring Mandelson me it was born in 1985 at the Brecon by-election I think I am the originator of the mushy peas story I made up this story that he'd gone into this very broad Welsh chip shop in the middle of reckoned and said that he'd like a six in a fish and could I have someone that guacamole dip please and I am he took it in very good part unreciprocated though it may have been man Lawson has always shown unusual devotion to the Labour Party even close friends could be sent to Siberia on its behalf after the 92 election I and others who who were fond of Neal felt very bitter about the way that very quickly Neil was being pushed aside by people who wanted to promote John Smith's leadership John Smith's role in the general election campaign etc for once in my life without consulting people like Peter or Tony or Gorton I sat down at my computer and I wrote a half page letters of The Guardian which basically was out of anger and sadness thought for the way Neil was being just shoved to one side Mandelson was furious at the divisive message this letter conveyed Peter refused to speak to me for three months after that this is a guy who had only recently been sharing a flat with he simply refused speak to me the one time the Peter and I have ever fallen out and it was quite a serious falling-out and it took quite a long time to recover was over the issue of red wedge red wedge he was a collection of 80s pop musicians who pledged to help build support for labour I was pretty skeptical about this and I said to him over this din a lot these guys are musicians you can't trust them you know they will be with you as long as the anti facture thing is popular but then they'll buzz off they don't really support Kinnick and he really bridled that this and we've got into a round he left prematurely let's put it that way I wouldn't go so far to say was a walkout but he was very very pissed off with me the fact is that what he hated was the idea that one would criticize the Labour Party that is his religion and I had almost in a way as if I'd gone into the Vatican said to the Pope do you know Catholics really don't follow your treating on birth control I defended him about much Mandelson's ruthless side hit a vulnerable aspect to his personality by the 1987 election he'd been living with his male partner for several years he has never hidden his homosexuality from people he's known but I knew Peter I never knew him to be anything other than completely open about what he was sexually there was no attempt to hide it there was no sense of shame about who and what he was any more than there was about any of the rest of us we were well aware of Peter sexuality it was never an issue never a subject than any of us discussed not something that mattered Mandelson however was deeply bruised when the news of the world ran a typically lurid story about his relationship in the middle of the 87 election campaign the atmosphere in the press office wasn't too good the phone was ringing ringing continuing now this was the man who news of the world who wanted to speak to be damned Anson who didn't want to talk to him and it was still rather bad for everybody because it was as if the enemy had successfully invaded our camp but it was in the controlling events so I took this call from him and told him that very well if he wanted to interview he could come round and do it in the office and we would call in the BBC and ITV and the whole nation would see him at work at that he put the phone down on me which was probably just as well because I had no agreement with Peter that he was going to tip the interviews like this he was very deeply wounded and wounded and full of remorse for the sake of the strength of the campaign during what time I worked him it's the only thing that he showed any type of shell has signed not being able to control and cope with what was happening he was my friend as well as a fellow working in the chorus so I did what anybody would do in those circumstances and gave him complete reassurance Mandelson did his most important work for Neil Kinnock in the two years after the 87 election defeat helping him to junk unpopular commitments on nationalization and defense then he faced a choice he wanted a seat in parliament but that would mean abandoning his role with Kinnick I didn't want that team broken up with the departure of anybody and I let him know he was determined to do it he gave me a number of reasons for doing it he thought that this is something he had to try but I did regret the fact that the team had been slightly fractured that's for certain [Music] by this time Mandelson had friends in the north another determined young politician Tony Blair had won the safe labour seat of Sedgefield in 1983 when one of the most prominent members of his local party stood aside for him in 1989 the same man saw an opening in neighboring Hartlepool I thought this is roundabout the last chance because I don't believe in going on to seventies and eighties and things like this so I was thinking about it and I I said to Tony I said the hardly pulls coming up I said I don't know where that our God Hartlepool and he said ah actually he said there's a friend of mine he said you met him Peter who I would you know I think he's interested so if Peter was interested that was good enough familiarly we put Tony in and it would be nice to put another star in as well Blair was one of two like-minded rising young stars with whom Adelson had by now formed a very close bond the other and at this stage the dominant figure was Gordon Brown Mandelson had spotted their potential before the 87 election and had used his position as head of communications to promote them you've got to remember about that kind of Blair Brown Mandelson axis that Peter in a sense was senior of the three he'd been around the course with Neil Kinnock when both 20 and Gordon were up incoming men [Music] he's a neighbor man smile he told me there's a broad smile when Mandelson fought Hartlepool in 1992 he was poised to emerge as a politician in his own right and his links with brown and Blair meant his long-term future looked in good shape there's a face on the front I'll be working full-time for the town after the elections he let me know Peter Benjamin mandersohn has been duly appointed to serve as a member of the Kentucky are people but the harmony between the three modernizers would before long be broken apart [Music] did you ever have a dream you just couldn't forget as a town covered in water someone left in it did you ever meet someone you couldn't get out of your head in quick and rapid energy in dreams wouldn't you like to change gear at the touch of a button now you can [Music] the new Alfa one point-six ever speak the first production saloon car with sequential transmission control on the steering wheel from 20 1993 pounds alpha one five six seven speed air canada has comfortable seats plenty of personal space and more lost bags despite full medical attention to mr. Smith he was pronounced dead at 9:15 on the turf of May Mandelson had been out of favor during the Smith years Smith's death propelled him back to the center of affairs but it also triggered a crisis the crucial five days after John Smith's death caused a rupture at the heart of New Labour Peter Mandelson is accused during this period of the darkest political treachery essentially the charge is that he eased Gordon Brown aside for the leadership in favor of Tony Blair whom he'd come to prefer so did Mandelson as accused knife Brown in the back on behalf of Tony Blair I was with him on the day that John Smith died I well so I walked over with him to the House of Commons where he met Tony Mandelson did meet Blair in secret in the division lobbies of the House of Commons on the afternoon of Smith's death Blair had already decided to stand but Mandelson is adamant that he did not throw in his lot with Blair at this stage and I then driving back to his flat and cuz he was so shook up I slept on the sofa bed that night ittsan got up the next morning where he was still unsure about what to do and you know mortified really or what happened and we got in the car and drove down and you know he was looking at the newspapers deep in thought and I turned to him and said you don't get the front runner standing down do you and he looked at me and said well no I don't suppose you do but did Mandelson engineer a momentum behind Blair on that Friday I was a parliamentary Lobby journalist at that time with me and others he rather painstakingly torqued up brown's chances i have not found one journalist who Mandelson briefed at this stage in favor of Blair rather than brown what is clear is that by the end of that Friday the momentum behind Blair needed no help from Mandelson or anyone else but the next day he was to make an intervention but brown's camp read as a clear move for Blair appearing on channel 4 he named four contenders possibly in order of preference can I just make another point I judge from your questions that you imagine that there is rather more that than divides Tony Blair for example or Gordon Brown Robin Kirk or John Prescott than unites them I think you're wrong he then explained how he thought Brown and Blair would decide which one of the two went forward they would want to consider who would be best fitted to lead the Labour Party who would maximize support for the party in the country and if every contender considered that I mean who who is best who can who will play best at the box office who will not simply appeal to the traditional supporters and customers of the Labour Party but who will bring in those extra additional voters that we need in order to win convincingly at the next election that's what he to contender and got to ask themselves before they put themselves forward was this a coded signal for Blair or did Mendelssohn's phrases apply equally to brown on the Monday Mandelson fax Brown a letter which his opponent see as evidence of his treachery ultimately the card the media are playing for Tony is his southern appeal he doesn't need to point it out or build it up my fear is that drift is harming you you either have to escalate rapidly or you need to implement a strategy to withdraw with enhanced physician strength and respect will you let me know your wishes Peter Mandelson's friends see this letter as Frankton constructive business him to me this is an act of rank treachery but simply shrewd an honest political advice but he's never been forgiven for it and I think he's become a convenient scapegoat it's as if psychologically I don't know whether Gordon Brown himself that some of the people around Gordon Brown cannot accept the fact that in a straight fight fair and square Tony Blair would have won and they'd have to find some other reasons some machiavel some devil that robbed them five years on it's still very hard to say exactly what Peter Mandelson's innermost thoughts and motivations were at this point I think he probably did realize pretty early on that Tony Blair was going to be leader of the Labour Party but that this thought disturbed him because of his very close friendship with Gordon Brown and he fought it but to imagine that he created the momentum which built up round Tony Blair almost from the moment that John Smith had died is I think to underestimate probably that conflict of loyalty and certainly to overestimate his power to influence in but the consequences of those few days would play themselves out inexorably over the next few years once Blair was leader Mandelson became as indispensable to him as he had been to Neil Kinnock I cannot think of a situation where and Tony Blair when he wanted proper advice about something something was going wrong wouldn't pick up the phone and dr. Peter he was a troubleshooter who would fly above the office like a sort of helicopter when there was a problem he would fly down sort it out and fly out again if there was a few extra brick Peter would break the eggs whereas Tony would would tried a little more gently in September that year Mandelson and brown fell out at a strategy meeting at a country hotel in Hampshire Brown put forward plans for changes in personnel at Labour's headquarters to his considerable chagrin Mandelson declined to back him I think Peter would say was probably the night that where the relationship really did break down and he did that because rather than just say you know we had Gordon I think you've got a point and then afterwards bring up Tony and say well actually I don't think he's right about that he wouldn't do it right and fairly enough when he discusses with Tony afterwards Tony said you know you should have just given Gordon that you should have just said you know you should because and that is why Tony blows Prime Minister and Peter Mandelson probably never will be over the next two years Blair was continually frustrated by the mutual antagonism between his two closest colleagues Brown seemed to Mandelson to resent his influence Mandelson was unable to contain his anger at Brown's resentment in May 1996 Mandelson abruptly left a meeting in Blair's office in the House of Commons feeling that Blair had a loud Brown to override him unfairly from Labour's headquarters on the river he wrote to Blair to resign as his advisor we have to recognize that you and I have reached the end of the road I am more than willing to carry on the general election planning if you wish although we'll reach the same brick wall on that too eventually I hope you don't think that a more proper is the root of my problem I have long gone beyond that but I felt greatly let down by you this morning and embarrassed I do not want to be in that position again leaving this letter behind him he flew to a meeting in Prague that weekend another Mandelson asserted itself we were wandering around by the river and then we suddenly heard some disco noise coming place and Peter said that's great so the leadership qualities well would go in there then and I thought I've no idea what this place it well he's absolutely marvelous dancer and since then people have said to me oh you know I've seen Peter dance as well I think not like we danced in Prague you haven't seen him does on his return from Prague Mandelson received Blair's reply to his letter blair acknowledged that it could be difficult to work with Gordon Brown but he made it clear that it was up to Mandelson to overcome those difficulties if he didn't he would have to accept his resignation now Lawson wrote back as a result of the situation with Gordon I am losing your support my career is being hampered I'm getting harmful publicity and I'm creating further enemies for myself nobody you included I suspect thinks Gordon is going to change and therefore as the number two I have to go but Blair got his way Mandelson relented and remarkably the tension didn't temper Labour's election campaign on which Brown and Mandelson worked together for [Music] Mandelson his role in delivering victory as campaign manager had a special significance I remember saying to him well congratulations and so on am i stuck in my mind that he said it looks as though this might be as big an election victory as the landslide my grandfather delivered for Clement Attlee and I thought it was odd that at that moment he was thinking about his grandfather but even in this moment of triumph he seemed curiously alone like a stage manager watching the curtain call from the wings I went into Mel Bank and and it was a ghost town really there was no one there at all all the desks have been left from the night before you computer screens are still on and they were like half bottles of beer all over the place and in the middle of the entire desolate mer who was Peter just sitting at a desk I'm staring into space and I said what are you doing now I said oh I don't know I said well you know I think you should go home to go to sleep I think that's the best thing you can do said no I can't I'm gonna wait here until until he gets to number 10 I'm not going to go home so he sat at his desk well on his sofa when Tillie was in the number 10 and then he went home to bed after the election Blair a gay news Mandelson as his troubleshooter appointing him as Minister without portfolio in charge of the coordination and presentation of policy the only job he had in his own right was the dough man Olson remained close to Tony Blair separated only by the inside door between the Cabinet Office and 10 Downing Street the fact that the door is there represents that fact that number 10 is a different office from the Cabinet Office and Peter and I were in the Cabinet Office and the Prime Minister's personal staff for all the people who are really in number 10 were the other side of that door it's best remembered from that wonderful episode of yes Prime Minister and called the key when the lock has changed on the door to stop sir Humphrey coming through the whole time Oh Humphrey I hope you had a key yes and he could go through whenever he wanted but Mandelson hankered after being his own man Peter always knew that he had a personal dilemma he was very close to the Prime Minister and if you're close to the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister says he needs you in a central role particularly when you come newly into government you can't cavil at that but he knew that his own political career wouldn't flourish until he went out and had experience on his own in a department with his appointment as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Mandelson finally had the chance to show his mettle as a minister it was a very good choice not only to put him in the cabinet but also given his very good links with British business and the trust they had in him that he should go to for that particular job he is an entrepreneur he is a man who takes risks and that's what business is often about there they are the kind of people that would respond to Peter Mandelson then he'd be a man who wanted to get things done and he did I say how nice in office he became a potent symbol of Tony Blair's commitment to bring business into the fold but I've become a revolutionary don't worry not a Marxist revolutionary but a modern industrial revolutionary but my view was that he was becoming a very successful Minister but after only five months in the cabinet he was brought down by reckless act committed three years before he had borrowed three hundred and seventy three thousand pounds from fellow MP Jeffrey Robinson to buy a house he had neglected to tell either his civil servants or Tony Blair or his closest friends I remember him saying did I ever tell you about this loan and I never say no you bloody well didn't and you know it he acknowledged that it have been you know just a stupid error I mean he hadn't realized that it would go to these proportions the consequences of a loan becoming public have long been clear to his young adviser whose solicitor father handled the loan I had known about the loan for some time and thought that where it's become public there would be a lot of pressure on Peter to resign not because there was anything wrong with it but because the newspapers would put a certain construction on it which would not look good for him and which would make it difficult for him to stay in government and I had thought all the way along that if it works become public he would probably have to resign [Music] Mandelson's resignation was the culmination of a second bout of frenzied media interest in his personal life he was in the period before the revelation was made was worried about his private life had been a Matthew Parris incident on Newsnight just a few words by a journalist in a live broadcast broke the taboo around Mandelson's sexuality Paris's sudden revelation seemed to discommode a presenter of legendary so far at least well that Chris Smith is openly case because openly gay Peter Mandelson is certainly gay yeah I think we'll just move on from from now I'm not quite sure where he is on that I think that that was what he was focusing on he was focused on that aspect actually nobody cares about sexuality and politics anymore they do oddly enough care about money and he followed the wrong bull he was caught on the wrong thing to worry about Mandelson's career has been a high-wire act politically it paid off handsomely for Blair and New Labour personally it was his undoing he could yet decide that he's done his job for the Labour Party but he has too many enemies that life outside politics would be more rewarding than a slow climb back to the top it's been talked about whether it'll stay in politics or you know whether it'll leave and I don't know what will come of all that but it's only a small segment in a man's life to say it for two years really concentrate on doing the nuts and bolts of the job and then you know that you could flower again and I think you bet you'd be better off for it right now he does seem committed to rebuilding his political career and winning the party round to stop fighting he will come back but he will work his way back because one of the reflections he will make is that if he's going to return and do it credibly it's got to be because people recognize that Peter Mandelson is made of good stuff if he is able to apply to his own situation the cool strategic approach he is so often taken to the labour party it's unlikely that we've seen the last of him [Music] ah me [Applause] [Music] hi new labor new theme light god channel falls political weekend and I mean there's just so much for me to choose from there's if John Smith had lived which considers what might have been had history taken a different turn and John Smith hadn't passed away still you can't blame us for what happened on the Conservatives who you can blame however may be revealed in the trial of Margaret Thatcher a metaphorical judgment sadly then there's in the court of King Tony hey come on let's a bit far fetch at least until the second term all followed by political comedy from Rory Bremner all these that my impression and that's all on the political weekend here on Channel four good isn't it anyone want to buy it

Channel: David Boothroyd

Views: 63,870

Rating: 4.6076293 out of 5

Keywords: Donald Macintyre, Peter Mandelson, Tony Blair, Miles Mandelson, Steve Howell, Graham Good, Trevor Phillips, David Aaronovitch, David Cox, Neil Kinnock, Colin Byrne, Joy Johnson, Andy McSmith, Tom Sawyer, David Hill, John Burton, Robert Harris, Derek Draper, Benjamin Wegg-Prosser, Anne McElvoy, Sarah Hunter, Robin Butler, Jack Straw

Id: ZxaQFpkBoNo

Length: 54min 14sec (3254 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 18 2017