The serialisation of Lord Mandelson’s memoirs, eerily entitled The Third Man, in The Times has attracted the expected attention of the Westminster world. Despite the enhanced level of detail contained within the dark reaches of Lord Mandelson’s book concerning the Blair-Brown feud—barely scandalous after thirteen years of New Labour—Lord Mandelson’s account of his former government colleagues is yet to have been judged particularly breathtaking or revelatory.

Indeed, former Ministers whose whole career had been spent denying the very existence of the faction-fighting at the heart of New Labour now simply blithely acknowledge what everyone else was aware of long ago. Lord Mandelson’s memoirs have not received many favourable reviews. London commuters would not doubt have read the London Evening Standard’s headline ‘Critics savage Peter Mandelson’s book as damp squib and duplicitous’, as even left-leaning elements within the media have failed to give the book and its author a sympathetic hearing. Lord Mandelson is being blamed for Labour’s electoral defeat and current crisis by many on the left beyond Charlie Whelan and the Brownite rump: Mary Anne Sieghart, for example, writing in The Independent, has attacked Mandelson’s ‘selfish vanity’ and labelled him ‘The man who ensured that Labour would spend five, possibly 10, years out of power’.

However, it may well be wrong to follow this analysis and write off Peter Mandelson. Rather than being the cause of the deepening of Labour’s defeat, he may well continue to be seen as a key party power-broker and a contributor to the untimely recovery of New Labour.

Crucially, the central thrust of Mandelson’s memoirs seems to be an intense, individual and unforgiving criticism of Gordon Brown. Tony Blair’s comments about his colleague and rival within what was effectively an unstable intra-party coalition government are presented in brutally un-edited form and Mandelson does not seem to conceal his complete lack of faith in Brown as Labour leader and Prime Minister. Peter Oborne, writing in The Daily Mail, appears right in his judgement that the ‘fundamental purpose of this book (besides making a huge sum of money for P Mandelson Esq) is to make sure that Gordon Brown gets the personal blame for all the disasters and mistakes of 13 years of Blair government’.

This allegation is wrong, misleading and potentially dangerous on a great many levels. Wrong, because the failings of the past government were not the fault of one man, but the result of far greater structural, ideological and governmental failures within New Labour. Misleading, because it attempts to prevent a thorough and fair analysis of these failings and, ultimately, dangerous because it suggests that the only thing Labour got wrong, the reason why they are in a somewhat arrogant and disgruntled opposition, is Gordon Brown.

With a new leader, the old, flawed answers are made right again. This new leader, however, cannot be an individual linked to the Brown camp. Lord Mandelson has thereby proved once again that he can make or break ambitions and control his party colleagues. Similarly, his memoirs provide an intellectual excuse and an argumentative framework to explain Labour’s defeat and to establish grounds for its immediate recovery: a recovery which would threaten the integrity and well-being of this country.

By demonising Gordon Brown to such an extent, Lord Mandelson has attempted to revive his party’s fortunes without a debate on policy. His argument encourages the belief that Labour were right all along, they just had the wrong man at the helm: an idea which may easily gain traction within the press and public commentators, especially as the Coalition government continues to address the shameful economic legacy of New Labour.

By presenting such a specious and characteristically deceitful explanation of New Labour in power, the Prince of Darkness may well be set to reign again.   

Filed under: corruption, gordonbrown, ukpolitics on July 14th, 2010