Blog posts tagged "Peter Mandelson"

July 16, 2010 7:28 am 25 Comments

At the Mandy book launch last night there were some wonderfully tedious 'no-shows' and some equally intriguing 'shows', the Prince of Darkness was in ebullient form.

September 28, 2009 5:29 pm No Comments

Few of us thought we’d live to see the day when a Labour party conference would rise as one to their feet in a standing ovation for Peter Mandelson. But today they did. Of course, we have seen it before – when Michael Heseltine did the same for the improbable electoral prospects of John Major.

June 15, 2009 9:44 am No Comments

Gordon Brown will announce an inquiry into the Iraq war this week. My sources tell me that this will not be chaired by a judge, senior or retired. It will be chaired instead by a historian. The hot tip in Whitehall is that it is likely to be the respected Churchill and Holocaust scholar Sir [...]

June 5, 2009 9:01 am No Comments

Crumbs! An act of personal political courage – or of scheming personal political advancement? At this point almost impossible to judge. I don’t know James Purnell well. He was once a pivotal bag carrier, speech writer and muse inside Tony Blair’s Downing Street. Hence a Blairite, almost certainly well aware of, and wary of, Gordon [...]

June 3, 2009 1:33 pm 52 Comments

A political crisis This is a political spectacle none of us has ever seen before. The government is reshuffling itself. Hazel Blears has just shuffled herself out of the Cabinet. She’d have been fired anyway over her second homery and non-payment of capital gains tax. Two other ministers, one of them another woman, are expected [...]

January 27, 2009 5:04 pm No Comments

Today heralded the great domestic political clash of the titans: Peter Mandelson versus Ken Clarke. Each a big beast in their own party, it would have been the first time they had collided since Clarke took over the business portfolio in opposition to Secretary of State Mandelson. The latter has announced a rescue package for [...]