ANALYSIS:Peter Mandelson's memoirs, and the speed with which they were produced, have infuriated Labour – but most are holding their breath for Blair's book, writes MARK HENNESSY
SITTING AT a table in the House of Commons this week, a Labour MP fumed about Peter Mandelson’s memoirs: “self-serving”; “ego-driven”, “utterly self-interested”, and those are only the phrases one can quote.
Mandelson's The Third Man: Life at the Heart of New Labourhas earned him up to £500,000 (€590,000), if one can believe publishing gossip – though much of it is often froth – from Harper Press and the serialisation rights taken up this week by the Times.
However, it has come at a cost. Last year, Mandelson, the man Labour never learned to love, was taken to the bosom of the party at its annual conference in Brighton, when he spoke from the heart about his love for Labour and his regrets for the mistakes that he had made.
Given the bile now directed at him, Mandelson may think twice about turning up at this year’s September conference in Manchester – though given he is one who ever wishes to be at the heart of the attention it cannot be ruled out.
However, the book adds little that is completely new: Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s relationship was dysfunctional and poisonous; Brown surrounded himself with a thuggish element; yet there were good things done too.
Tell us something we do not know, please.
Despite Labour’s fury towards him, the reality is that Mandelson did not have much choice but to produce his tome when he did, since Blair will consume much of the available oxygen once his memoirs emerge.
In the eyes of internal critics, he has betrayed confidences, injured Labour at a time when it has begun to damage the Conservative/Liberal Democrats alliance and upset the dynamic of the party leadership campaign.
In truth, much of this is nonsense. Political memoirs, unless they reveal confidential exchanges, are not worth writing. More importantly, they are not worth reading. Secondly, the public is not paying much attention to Labour right now anyway.
Thirdly, some of the leadership candidates might do better by leading a full-scale debate on the sins of Labour’s past, rather than offering sorrowful turns on camera about how all of this “looking back” is nothing but a distraction from serious business.
Ed Balls, for instance, has simply made himself look silly by denying that he was Brown’s henchman in the treasury in the war with No 10 and by insisting he never said any vicious things about Blair.
For a start, Mandelson is not the only one saying it. Observerjournalist Andrew Rawnsley in his terrific account, The End of The Party, said it more extensively; so too Alastair Campbell; as did Blair's biographer Anthony Seldon and a host of others before.
Labour MP Diane Abbott, the longest-shot outsider in the leadership race, had a point yesterday when she railed against her four competitors – all of whom served in cabinet or in other influential positions during the Blair/Brown years.
“You wouldn’t believe to hear them that they were at the heart of the New Labour project for at least a decade, whether or not they were MPs or not, they were at the heart, they were working for one or the other of the two key people.
“They were members of cabinet for five years and yet at hustings after hustings they tell you they disagreed with this, they disagreed with that, they don’t know why we did this, they don’t know why we did that, and all this hand-wringing and pretending they weren’t there, that they weren’t at the heart of the project, is slightly . . . amazing.”
Mandelson, however, has damaged his own reputation by becoming a figure of ridicule – particularly for his appearance in the now notorious fairytale TV advert for the newspaper serialisation.
Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock, who is given somewhat less than full-hearted applause for his role in modernising Labour, was clearly irked by Mandelson’s version of history.
“The problem is with Peter, I really do believe – and I’m sorry about it in many ways, because he’s got great capabilities, and he’s been prepared to donate those capabilities to the cause of Labour. But the fact is, so much was said about him as, for instance, the Prince of Spin, and the Prince of Darkness, that he inhaled and he’s actually come to believe that caricature of himself,” he told the BBC’s Straight Talk programme.
In reply, Mandelson says his critics should read the book and not just the serialisation since the former offers “a more rounded account” than the more controversial excerpts chosen, understandably, by the newspaper bosses.
And it is true, the book is more rounded, though it is often more revealing than the author may realise about the insecurities that appear to lie at the heart of a man who can be fabulous company, yet, moments later, take rudeness and arrogance to new heights.
Never one to underestimate his skills, Mandelson, the arch-Labour tribalist, still sees himself having a role in the party – not a view universally shared by his former colleagues right now. But a man with as many lives as the proverbial cat cannot entirely be ruled out.
In particular, he wants to set up a communications school for Labour staffers – “a Hogwarts for spinners”, as it was humorously described in yesterday’s Guardian newspaper, along with making “a bigger financial contribution”.
And Mandelson, who has a fascination with the wealthy and with being wealthy, will have high hopes for his abilities to make financial contributions to his own coffers, not just Labour’s. Russian oligarchs of the world, take note.
Labour would do well to take some long, deep breaths and emit calmness, rather than the petulance some of them have exhibited in the wake of Mandelson’s book. It was always going to be published, so it is best that it were done quickly.
In any event, Mandelson’s tome, though it would hurt him to accept it, is but the supporting act.
The main event occurs on a date yet to be announced in September when Blair puts his private thoughts into the open.
Blair says that he will be measured, which is usually translated to mean boring; though his publishers will have undoubtedly demanded a pound of flesh for the £4 million advance. Labour’s period of backward reflection is far from over.
Mark Hennessy is London Editor