A final thought before a summer break

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

"He will try, I believe, to revive the Brown/Obama partnership, presenting the pair at the G20 in Pittsburgh this September as the duo which is saving the world"

Can't wait to see that. Obama is squandering his inheritance on a botched attempt at healthcare reform while the US economy sinks ever lower into the swamp. Over 50% of US citizens now believe their country's best years are in the past and while Brown calls for ever greater indebtedness to pay for, er, our ever greater indebtedness, the rest of the world looks on with a mixture of bewilderment and contempt.

You may be impressed by Meddlesome's powers of political alchemy (I'm just see him as a vainglorious ass), but I'm afraid not even he can transform the sow's ear that is The Crashmeister and his increasingly dysfunctional government, into anything resembling an effective opposition, let alone a party fit for government.

"Peter Mandelson has used the opportunity afforded by the absence of his boss to set out Labour's strategy for the autumn fight."

This is exactly what's wrong with the man. He speaks his own thoughts as if they were Labour Party Policy - never mind what the cabinet, MPs or party members (those who are left) have to say. His prominence and influence on both Blair and Brown is one of the main reasons why so many members voted with their feet.

He truly is like Tolkien's Wormtongue, undermining from within. I wonder if the Tories will reward him for his role in helping destroy the Labour Party. Ambassador to Washington perhaps?

Even Obama's ratings are dropping if the polls are to be believed. For Mandy to attempt to align dead duck Brown with The US President under any circumstances seems to me to be a fruitless exercise! The gold dust dissolves as soon as it hits the shoulders of our failed P.M.

Nick, you say "And finally, he wants Labour to be seen as the underdogs, getting sympathy from those who dislike the establishment types running the Tory party with big business increasingly rallying to their support"

The reality is, Labour are now the underdogs - and rightly so, as people can now see the mess they have created. Brown has squandered the financial stability he inherited from the Tories and plunged us into massive debt. Remember when Gordon pretended to champion 'prudence'? But all the while, he was simply pouring our money down the drain.

Labour's traditional policy is founded on tax-and-waste. It always has been. Eventually they run out of money and then they run around like headless chickens with no idea of what to do.

Bringing back the discredited and unelected Mandelson was a sign of Brown's desperation. You suggest that Mandy will now try "to revive the Brown/Obama partnership, presenting the pair at the G20 in Pittsburgh this September as the duo which is saving the world"

No one is really interested in what Mandy has to say, on this or any other topic!

As for Brown and Obama 'saving the world', this is just an example of how delusional they have become!

"substantial adjustments" has the ring of the Japanese Emperor, speaking after the 2nf atom bomb was dropped, saying that the war situation "was not necessarily to Japan's advantage".

If Lord Mandelson is, as you suggest, the prime mover in attempting to revive New Labour's fortunes, then surely the most obvious course of action should be foremost in his planning : get rid of Gordon Brown.
[Personal details removed by Moderator]

Is it a good idea for Brown to be seen with Obama?
A lot of whats wrong with this country is seen as because of America's influence (credit crunch, war in Iraq, capitalist rather than socialist political spectrum) so I would have thought the two leaders being seen together would just reinforce the image of Brown doing nothing right.

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"substantial Adjustments" from a spin encrusted government does not fill me with confidence especially in the context of two expensive aircraft carriers and a likely replacement of Trident. If Mandelson wants to avoid a complete electoral disaster he needs to tell Brown to go. He wont so next best thing is action to deal with poverty, education and the environment. Plans there are a plenty but after 12 years of a Labour government with a better than working majorities why does so much need to be put right? Confessions of failure but followed by decisions and action to put things right might convince Labour supporters that the era of spin has ended.

First of all, he's abandoned the crude talk of Labour investments versus Tory cuts. He now talks of a choice between what he describes as substantial adjustments by Labour ministers, in comparison with savage cuts delivered gleefully by their Tory opponents

Are they at last figuring that the electorate might have a brain and not beleive anything GB has said?

Two points though:
I am not sure the Tories said savage cuts with any glee

He is still trying to fudge with semantics between substantial adjustments and savage cuts.

T*sser

Two thoughts strike me. First, Peter Mandelson may have modified the wording about cuts, but Brown still shows no sign of being anything other than in deep denial about cuts, and the economic mismanagement which got us here, not to speak of his grotesque misuse of the word investment. Secondly, having watched PM on Newsnight, I at last had a living definition of that wonderful Lewis Carroll word "slithey". It somehow fits Lord M to a tee.

I bet Mandy wants Labour to be seen as the underdogs, unfairly reaping what they sowed. God forbid the party in power for the last 12 years be associated with, er, the party in power for the last 12 years.

So his selling points amount to: "We're nice and they're nasty, but I can't show any evidence to support that", "Gordon Brown is actually Barack Obama; no, it's not a vicarious attempt to share his popularity, he really does possess the same characteristics of compelling rhetoric, a strong vision for change, a fascinating life story, and a vein of honesty", and "Let's pretend that we're the best choice to sort out the mess we created".

I used to think Mandy was a shrewd politician, if an awful man, but if that's the best he can do to sell the Labour party, the last person out had better turn off the lights.

So...Wee Jimmy will be again be posing as Firemen...when all along he was really the Arsonist.

"I'll be back when the political season resumes."

Golly, I thought Brown and Mandelson planned that Ministers would pop up all over the place to announce "initiatives" during the Parliamentary recess. Don't they know there is supposed to be a close season?

Mandelson "...now talks of a choice between what he describes as substantial adjustments by Labour ministers..."
For goodness sake, why can't these people stop talking in SPIN and get back to English.
We do understand that "The feline creature adopted a relaxed posture on the floor covering, no doubt to contemplate future activities" still means the B cat sat on the B mat...

There will be CUTS, regardless who takes power next year.

The Treasury publication shows that Lord Mandy's own department will have a "growth (as Brown would put it) of MINUS 20 percent in 2010/11.

Why can't these people be honest?

I've no party allegiance, but I would gleefully take an axe to the special advisors in Whitehall. And make every IT contract and consultancy engagement contingent on the delivery of the "promised" results. So you say you'll improve efficiency? Do it and we'll pay you from the benefits delivered.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

I still think they will go to the poles between the party confs and the queens opening of parliment.

Too many bad tax and job changes come into effect after then and if they go to the poles they dont need to do another pre budget report!

Also Darling, Brown and Mandy in the last week have all stated that they wil and must turn the party around before the autumn

I am sure he is looking forward to the state opening and receiving the black rod.

The Robinson/Mandelson interview is well worth watching as an example of how a political spin master destroys a competent interviwer. A transcript of the interview should be kept for future politics students (or for anyone about to be interviewed by the media,) as Mandelson employed, qute brilliantly, virtually every rhetorical trick in the book to avoid saying anything of substance.

The highlight was when he said 'you've made your point', reducing any substantive criticism of Labour to a mere student debating point (I must remember that one next time I'm losing an argument with my wife).

So now the media and the political class go off for their extended hols, and meanwhile the Labour Government is borrowing half a billion pounds per day to maintain the fiction of economic competence. So by the time they come back from their break a further 30 billion pounds will have been dumped on present and future tax-payers. And still Labour have no plan to address the issue.

Professional interviwers have to be too polite to Government Ministers (otherwise they won't be given access again). Brown and Mandelson should face a panel of real electors who wouldn't be afraid to call spin, lies, and evasions what they really are.(However, I understand Labour's strategy is to hide Brown for the duration of the General election campaign).

As a credible reporter how can you justify "savage cuts delivered gleefully by their Tory opponents".
I have never heard the glee in their voices when announcing possible cuts and it certainly won't be there when they discover the true state of this country's finances!

Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell can only work with what they've got - which is Gordon Brown.

Both have fully realised Browns limitations as PM, which was brutally delineated in a recent Economist piece.

They do the best they can to both try and make Brown appear more presentable (Campbell) and map out the strategic direction (Mandelson).

None will do much good, Brown is not suited to the PM's job, unlike his predecessor who had the full range of skills required for that job.

Therefore, the NL cabal are really just engaged upon a damage limitation exercise to avoid the party being completely trashed at the next General Election.

Nick,

If you are travelling abroad to sunnier climes, please remember to cover up that bald head of yours...

...we wouldn't want to see your sun-burnt head matching the colour of your political bias now...would we!

Happy hols.

A very interesting subject for you blog to leave us with, enjoy your hols Nick .....

Quite a remarkable wish list from Lord Mandelson, who seems ever increasingly distant from reality. This whole Brown-Mandelson issue seems to get more bizarre by the day.


"Peter Mandelson has used the opportunity afforded by the absence of his boss to set out Labour's strategy for the autumn fight."

It's looking increasingly like Peter Mandelson is actually the boss, the unelected boss of an unelected PM. The whole agenda listed contains nothing positive whatsoever. It is entirely centred around making the government look good despite its appalling track record, and offers nothing whatsoever to the people of the country.
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"First of all, he's abandoned the crude talk of Labour investments versus Tory cuts. He now talks of a choice between what he describes as substantial adjustments by Labour ministers, in comparison with savage cuts delivered gleefully by their Tory opponents."

Pure spin and semantics. The country is broke and the government cannot carry on spending like it has been have been. Cuts, adjustments, efficiency savings call them what you like, they will have to be made.
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"He wants the focus now to shift from the future to the present and to the decisions needed to avoid a worsening economic crisis."

I'll bet he does. They have no real plans or ideas for the future. Making quick decisions on the hoof on a day to day basis is what they are doing.
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"He will try, I believe, to revive the Brown/Obama partnership, presenting the pair at the G20 in Pittsburgh this September as the duo which is saving the world."

Pure desperation. Is this the best stategy they have ?
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"And finally, he wants Labour to be seen as the underdogs, getting sympathy from those who dislike the establishment types running the Tory party with big business increasingly rallying to their support."

Underdogs ? You have to be kidding! It is difficult to describe anyone who behaves in such an arrogant, dismissive, controlling, dishonest and bullying manner an underdog.

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"Having said all that, if I'd been writing this entry last summer, we wouldn't have had a mention of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and all that that entailed, or of the expenses scandal - or indeed of the e-mails that did for Gordon Brown's recovery just a few months ago. "

And there will be a lot more to wirte about soon, as the government seem to be unable to do anything right. They are just incapable of making any well thoughtout long term decisions about anything. Last week it was helicopters for the troops. This week it's reducing compensation payments for injuries to the same troops.

This situation simply cannot continue.

"to revive the Brown/Obama partnership, presenting the pair at the G20 in Pittsburgh this September as the duo which is saving the world ..."

Risible

I once met Peter Mandelson outside the Winter Gardens in Blackpool just a few minutes after we had both watched Maggie give her "U-turn if you want to, the Lady's not for turning" speech. For a few minutes we challenged each other about the issues of the day and Thatcher's performance. The man is an astute and serious political animal who has the ability to present fiction as fact. All Tories should be aware of his importance over the next 10 months, because he is a serious threat to the size of our majority.

I am disappointed that your otherwise very good stint on Newsnight was so heavily biased.
Over 10 minutes given to promoting Lord "we are the underdogs now" Meddlesome in his bid to lead the Babour Party.

Where was the interview with Hague and Cable?

If the proposed Brown/Cameron debate ever happens I wonder which leftie lackey the BBC will put in charge of the questioning?...and Ooops! I'm betting Brown will pull a sickie at the very last minute and Lord M will have to step bravely forward to take his place.

Nice of the BBC to ignore the main debate that has been taking place and try to get people to concentrate on Lord Mandlepoop of Hartlekins' ideas about the differences in policy agenda.

For a twenty minute summary of what the tories have been listening to recently and whence some of their ideas came:

https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/webcasts/jocelynebourgon/JocelyneBourgon.html

It's not for me to say whether the tories will have the gumption to adopt this strategy, or indeed the talent and determination to deliver it. But thius woman's exposé of how successive Canadian governments had come to believe in the power of the fiscal stimulus while the deficit rose even higher is an apocryphal tale.

How many times have we heard the need for newlabour investment to take us throught these troubled times? Not everyone in the world believes that public spending gets you out of difficulty. Plus, where the spend your way out of trouble route has yet to be proven, the Canadian save your way out of trouble has been tried and worked.

And just in case Lord Mandlepoop utters the ,line again about the toreis gleefully lining up to tlak about public sector cuts he should liosten this clip as well...a 23% cut in public sector employees was effected by Canada over 3 years which was, quite simply, worn by those departments who had become most bloated and did not hold up well under the scrutiny of a public enquiry......

Looking forward to seeing this being rolled out across the UK.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

"He will try, I believe, to revive the Brown/Obama partnership, presenting the pair at the G20 in Pittsburgh this September as the duo which is saving the world."

Except nobody believed his $5 trillion global stimulus then, and they wont believe it in October. His mandarin in charge of the banks who has flipped flopped between the public and private sectors, has flipped off to the private sector, at least he says he has, but he hasn't actually got a job and is happy to stay on for another 6 months or so. Meanwhile Brown talks about selling the banks back to the private sector for 66% more than he paid for them while his Chancellor calls in the banks to tell them their loans are too expensive, thereby capping the potential returns to shareholders.

Save the world? Brown couldn't save the coupons off a box of cornflakes.

If the opposition is gleeful its probably because the Labour Party has now acknowledged more overtly that whichever party wins the next election substantial adjustments in spending and tax will be needed. I don't think that the 'underdog' theme will work - the electorate is not that daft.

I despair! Where will honesty and a heart felt desire to do the right thing for the country come from?

Everything I hear from the Labour Party (Mandleson directly or through the mouths of others) is designed to strengthen their chances at the next election rather than strengthen our country.

Revivng the Obama/Brown G20 partnership should be about working together to build a strong future for our countries not helping out Brown with his popularity

I am not sure who I will vote for at the next election, I will read the manifestos, but I know who has lost my vote, (they had it once in 1997).

I have tried my best to tone down my words, but can't help how I feel about this man.

He has absolutely no mandate to be telling the British Public anything! Unfortunatelly New Labour have no concern for laws (doesn't matter how old they are they can be changed at will), or democracy (we hate people being dropped into the lords - except our own).

Can't the media treat him as he deserves and ignore every calculated word that drips from his mouth?

Nick,

The problem is that to succeed not only do Labour have to ditch of Gordon Brown, they will have to get ditch the policies that he has implemented during the last 12 years. The reality is that this Government has achieved absolutely nothing of any value.

Wherever and whenever Gordon Brown interfered he made everything more complex and difficult to implement. Without doubt he will go down as the architect and builder of the House of Cards that will be presented to the next government.

He was both arrogant and incompetent in equal measure but he still cannot recognise that somewhere along the line he made huge mistakes.

Sorry, but not a hope in hell of rebuilding Labour's reputation. As I've said before, many friends who are exactly the people Mandelbum wants to vote Labour have said it is too late and there is not a chance. They will either vote Conservative or abstain.

On a positive note, I look forward to Laura K running the blod. She seems eminently sensible and I hope will cover the subjects the bloggers wish to see covered and be TOTALLY BALANCED.

Just thinking about the "political closed season".

Alan Johnson has just unveiled "our" new ID card. Over time, various Ministers have claimed it will reduce fraud, battle illegal immigration, protect Identity, etc.

To achieve even a smidgen of any of these, on each occasion someone needs to check dentity - for example, when you buy something in a shop - the vendor will need to be equiped with fingerprint readers at every check-out. These will then have to be cross-checked against fingerprint data held on the card. Either quite a complex bit of kit in the shops, or data sent down line for cross checking. That should stuff up the check-out queues quite nicely. (Employment opportunities, I suppose...)

Anybody know how much it's going to cost? I've never seen an estimate.

And how will it stop fraud during on-line shopping?

Anyone have an idea how long it will be before a hacker gets into the database and copies Alan Johnson's data into the name of Joe Bloggs? Where will that leave the Minister? If the Government run database says he's really Joe Bloggs, could he still collect his salary?

Mandelson's electoral weight is vastly over-rated.

He might have some weight in the lofty environs of Westminster and with the media luvvies, such as Nick.

But out in the real world I think he is generally hated, at worst, distrusted at best. He is unelected and a twice disgraced politician. So where it actually matters, at the ballot box, Mandelson will be a dead weight around Gordon Brown's neck. Lablour will have a nett loss of votes due to Mandelson's presence.

He was brought back because Gordon had run out of ideas and was panicking.

Some have likened Mandy to Grima Wormtoungue in the Lord of the Rings. That is a good analogy. My wife calls him "Randall" a rather unlovable creature from "Monsters Inc.".

The self-appointed His Master's Voice (HMV) of Gordon Brown speaks out again (HMV - for those who werent around at the time made a machine that went round and round in circles requiring a needle to get a sound out of it after it had been wound up by hand - with a dog on top - sounds just like Lord Snooty doesnt it?) He thinks that the Tories take great delight in having to cut public expenditure. Gleeful is the word he used. I find his whole demeanour so distasteful that I wish he would evaporate in some way. However, the idea that any of us, Tory, Labour or Liberal, would wish further misery on the British people after everything that Brown, Mandelson, Blair and the rest have done is cyncial in the extreme. Sadly, he is so wrapped up in the quest for power that he cannot see how awful his words are.

I want rid of the Government, as almost everyone on this board does, but I dont want to see its defeat explained in terms of the inevitable cuts that Tories will have to make. We all know where the blame lies, but there is nothing gleeful about that process right now. Sadly, I think the financial crisis has at least one more leg to run once the enormous sums owed on credit cards start to unwind. Add that to the lag in unemployment, and a feeble return to growth sometime in 2010 and you have all the ingredients for a miserable time for most people. Lower services and tax rises are the ingedients of despondency.

I dont know about David Cameron but I think we all should hope that he is better than the present incumbent - if not God help us.

Peter Mandelson, he who must be in power regardless, can gabble and yap rabidly about what his party are going to do and all the clever little
initiatives they are going to come up with to thwart the Tories from
climbing back into the driving seat (God help us!) but surely he must
know that Labour are done for and his wretched spinning ain't gonna help.

Bye, bye Mr Robinson.

Shame you never once wrote an Article based on confronting the 650 woebegones for their duplicity and failure to accept proper, longterm effective, modernising UK Constitutional-Parliament REFORM.

Shame you never once wrote an Article based on REPRESENTING the Political interests of the BBC License-Fee Paying Public of the British Isles to the 650 miscreant, con-artist MPs..

Shame you never once wrote an Article a person titled BBC Political Editor might actually feel usefully addressed the demise of the CITIZENS' Rights and Responsibilities under the auspices of the present 650 MPs and 200 or so Peers of UK body-politic.

But, that's 'democracy' isn't it? You and your BBC get your little stories from the small minds at Westminster, so, you are representing one group - - the one with all the authority and power - - meanwhile the UK's unrepresented huge majority pay for the privilege of an electoral and media elite to preen and congratulate each other.

Still, there's always next season, aye!

it's time for a summer break

Coo. Sounds fun. Can we all join in? Or is it just for unique folk?

Re 4 Sasha Clarkson no, PLEASE!!!

Send him to South Georgia - and have pity on the penguins!

# 23 - What, blue ? Did you think he was going to Greenland ?

By the way, I hope Peter Rippon is going to offer you a full time gig on Newsnight. Of course, dropping Kirsty or Emily would raise all those very fraught debates about ageism / sexism. But you've done a good job there.

Our great leader is on holiday in the Lake District, where they are currently suffering floods. What other plague or pestilence is next?

Mandy must be fairly confident to be spinning this line, but the lack of honesty in the premise just underlines much of his argument.

A lot can happen in politics in a week, and I'm guessing after the debacle of the service man injuries in the High Court and Bob having to return early from his holiday, the government is now going to try to keep its head down before the party politics season begins.

At least with Brown away there was only one lot of ammunition available to shoot Labour in the foot. Imagine what it will be like when they return. Maybe we could convince them to stay away and therefore avoid any press at all.

#20 John Harris

I thought Nick did a better job than Andrew Marr, who was totally entranced by Mandelson's stare.

Mandleson was trying to catch Nick's gaze but Nick seemed to spend a fair amount of time looking at his notes to avoid eye contact initially.

Mandelson did exert control later in the interview but he is a formidable force.

Of all the possible political news that might have been material for a blog, was it really necessary to use the opportunity to broadcast the gospel according to Mandellson ? If he is the best the Labour party can produce to bolster the already foundering party fortunes, then the Tories can enjoy their hols. secure in the knowledge that the red flag is on a downward spiral. I wonder if it was dear Peter that Cameron meant when he got his twitters mixed up.

Has Mandy briefed Laura yet?

3. At 1:20pm on 30 Jul 2009, BankSlickerminustheR wrote:
Nick,

If you are travelling abroad to sunnier climes, please remember to cover up that bald head of yours...

...we wouldn't want to see your sun-burnt head matching the colour of your political bias now...would we!

Happy hols.

===

Bankslicker, you're not Dubya Bush by any chance, are you?

"Nick Robinson had another run in with George Bush. At a press conference featuring Bush and Gordon Brown, Bush said to Robinson "you should cover up your bald head, its getting hot". As Bush walked away Robinson replied "Didn't know you cared", to which the President said "I don't".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Robinson

Nick, a favour before you leave, perhaps you could pack Lord M in your luggage and see if you can encourage BAA to lose it for you, we would be ever so grateful. Thanks,

"He will try, I believe, to revive the Brown/Obama partnership, presenting the pair at the G20 in Pittsburgh this September as the duo which is saving the world."

===

Nick, if so I suggest that "Jimmy" gets a little coaching beforehand, we wouldn't want another embarrassing "Obama Beach" incident, would we?

Seems to me not a great deal has been made out of yesterdays farce where according to Lord Mandleson the Prime Minister was apparently happy to do a televised debate with David Cameron hurriedly denied by Number 10.

What was all that about? I can't believe a shrewd political operator like Lord Mandleson would make such a statement without some good reason. It did rather undermine the PM. Has Lord Mandleson issued a clarification yet?

"And finally, he wants Labour to be seen as the underdogs, getting sympathy from those who dislike the establishment types running the Tory party with big business increasingly rallying to their support."

===

So the party of government for the last 12 years, totally responsible for the current state of the British economy, the party that has been assiduously courting the City and big business, wants to pretend it was nothing to do with them? Baron Mandelson, of Foy in the County of Herefordshire and of Hartlepool in the County of Durham, First Secretary of State, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and Lord President of the Council is clearly deluded, he cannot even bring himself to use the word "cuts", how does he expect to be taken seriously?

"Peter Mandelson has used the opportunity afforded by the absence of his boss to set out Labour's strategy for the autumn fight."

===

So, what he knows, and what we know, and what he knows that we know, is that "Jimmy" Brown is in office but not in charge. So just what exactly is the point of Brown?

#6 DistantTravellor

"Remember when Gordon pretended to champion 'prudence'? But all the while, he was simply pouring our money down the drain."

I fully agree with your sentiments, but let me correct the above point - during the time the Great Waster was mouthing 'prudence', he wasn't pouring money down the drain. In fact, he was sticking to the sensible Tory spending plans he had inherited. After two years (in which the national debt went down) he starting splurging, and soon stopped mentioning prudence.

Labour governments have bankrupted the country twice in my lifetime.

Even after all the press around cuts v non cuts and 0% spending rises, and pleas from the voters to be given the true picture, New Labour are still trying to spin spending cuts as 'substantial adjustments' It.....just.....beggars....belief!

The only thing that our wonderful government - not, are hanginf on for is the Irish to be bribed into saying yes to the Lisbon treaty so that it can be enacted before the Conservatives come to power thus stopping our rightful referendum on the treaty. What a spiteful bunch they truely are!

Whenever Mandelson appears, the word oleaginous springs to mind!

#4

"He truly is like Tolkien's Wormtongue"

I think he's more like Saruman - deluded that he has real power but still "capable of a little mischief in a mean way"

My despair is over!

I have realised that Labour's chances of winning at the next election are inversely proportional to the amount of times Brownstuff and Meddlesome open their spinning mouths in public.

Even the BBC can't change that

how much more of these fools must the voters endure.
most should be behind bars or barred from being mp's.
during their extended holiday why cant we just elect a new parliment to remove them painlessly.

OK it's true then. If somebody is disgraced during this Labour term put them in the European Parliament and then allow them to come back like a ghoulish green ghost to haunt you for evermore.

Keep on haunting us Mandelson, you are not liked and you never will be.
We will fight on the beaches and we will never ever surrender to a ghoul.

Toodlepip Nick.

Mandy is a law unto himself. He has taken over completely and Gordon is PM in name only. He has forced Gordon into going live against Cameron on TV which must surely seal his fate. What then, will Mandy relinquish his peerage, stand as a MP and then take over as leader of Labour? He must be doing all of this for a reason. You don`t hear from anyone else in government now, even poor old Harriet has given up. Talk about silence of the lambs. Its just dreadful that the cabinet seems to have given up and are letting Mandy do what he wants. I don`t think politics in this country has been in such a dire state, ever. Never mind the summer rain, winter this year is going to be long, long, long.

45. At 2:31pm on 30 Jul 2009, meninwhitecoats wrote:
#20 John Harris

I thought Nick did a better job than Andrew Marr, who was totally entranced by Mandelson's stare.

Mandleson was trying to catch Nick's gaze but Nick seemed to spend a fair amount of time looking at his notes to avoid eye contact initially.

Mandelson did exert control later in the interview but he is a formidable force.

===

Hmm, rather like Kaa the snake in Disney's version of The Jungle Book!

DO NOT KISS YOUR FREE BUS PASS GOODBYE, YET !
It might be of interest to know that one of perhaps the most significant moments of our age took place last week when, apparantly, shares closed at 6-months high, which meant that leading USA/UK shares closed at their HIGHEST levels for 6 months based on good economic and corporate news. For the first time since January the Dow Jones index closed above 9.OOO i.e up 88 points 2.1% on the day, showing a BIGGER than expected jump in sales and profits. Traders,perhaps not always given to playing politics were, however,buoyed by the very early signs of a recovery and were rumoured to be drinking to Darlings health.
Kiss your free bus passes goodbye if Cameron wins!It is already becoming clear that many of his escapades at P.M.Q.T.cannot disguise his own failing for any alternative solutions. By all means,let us support the Tories and return to the days of full unemployment,cuts in benefits, endless strikes, winterfuel allowances cut and so on...
Another recent example why experts believe Britain already is over the worst of the recession is that,e.g., sales in UK shops shot up 1.2% in June following a sharp fall in May.The jump was much more than the O.3% rise expected by economists. Retail sales had fallen O.9% in May whilst the Office for National Statistics said sales rose 2.9% from June 2OO8. The unexpectedly high retail sales figures lend support to the views that the U.K. is now OVER THE WORST of the recession. According to the ONS sales in textile, clothing and footwear stores by 11.3% from the year earlier. Welldone!
No doubt Nick, our widely admired BBC guru ,can explain better than I do with my 7O years why, apparantly,the more popular a Brit is abroad,particularly if related to politics and/or France, meets up with a mountain of cynicism and hostility..Interesting, beause whatever is being said of him here, the P.M. in this case ,is much respected and admired anywhere abroad,mainly for having been at the forefront of the interational discussions concerning the global credit crisis from the very beginning! When watching a tv football game in a busy Spanish Cafe recently,someone politely wondered if I would not mind switching over to another Channel as many in the Cafe were looking forward to a speech by " one of the greatest heroes of our time. Someone ideally suited to
become the next Nobel Prize winner... It is your very intelligent Sir Gordon Brown !", he declared with plenty of Spanish gusto. I was everybodys instant Amigo for the rest of the evening with Cervezas arriving at the rate of one a minute..
Back in the UK, I was instantly reminded of Browns standing at home: " his lust of power..he's not wanted anymore..what are we going to do now" Revolt! Force? Is there any hope for mankind " The sheer blood-and-thunder monotony from an army of part-timers, sending out identical daily messages,encouraging the gullible to follow an already over-exhausted if not already over-dead head sheep with only a handful of wise bloggers following and guarding those who might need help. But..at least the economy s recovering,house prices going up, unemployment easing, pound up, FTSE up. Even if it is just in fairness to some of those politicians who simply continued working very hard indeed despite non-stop personal and irrelevant criticism based on party political incentives, surely there are moments when admitting to someones achievements might help to make politics slightly more bearable rather than helping to make it even worse than what it already is : stale, tedious and hypocritical. .

#22 JohnConstable

I'm incredulous.... Lord Mandelson seems to be the new political story.

Nevertheless, according to another respected political commentator who heard it from a minister, Brown will be out very soon and these gentle repositionings tie in with the suggestion that he's going to be replaced by someone from the 'soft' left. This will, I assume, have to be close enough to the election to avoid bringing it forward.

It seems that Labour is losing it's 'New' prefix and pretending to be turning away slightly from their pro-corporation policies - for now anyway.

If so this must simply be aimed at getting their vote back to the polling stations. As you suggest, damage limitation, and if it works effectively, a hung parliament.

Mandelson has always been able to talk the talk, but when it comes to walking the walk he has failed miserably on numerous occasions....

The Kingmaker is a wonder to behold. Trying to rebramd as the "underdog". Good try! Problem is the leader is not appealing in any way. But you have to admire Mr Smooth's professionalism though he had the grace to admit that you did "score your point"!! It's all a game! This remark made it clear. Fun without responsibility. Better to be Kingmaker than King!

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Liked your appearance on Newsnight. Got better as you went along.

As far as Mandelson speak is concerned I find it rather stale and suggest he tries talking in the plain language that we all understand.

Very annoying for he appears not to have much ground knowledge of how people think and feel any more. Srill thinks he's dealing with a pre-internet disinterested electorate.

Too high and mighty for his own good. Certainly no labour appeal so who is he going to appeal to?

to #64 cyberidiot

It is obvious to me that the only thing that the left wingers have left is unverifiable scare tactice. Bus passes, oh please do you really think that David Cameron will have worked so hard for these last few years to get some power and then use this to remove free bus passes from OAPs.

It is staggering stupidity to try and claim that labour will be the party of protection, they have stiffed the country for 12 years and It's not their fault?

You and your ilk are killing the UK from within.

Anyone else spot the report from the Commons Public Accounts Committee?

It says that alcohol-related hospital admissions in 2006/07 had risen to 811,000. That was a 71 percent rise in four years.

That must be a shock for the doubters. You know, the ones who say this government hasn't managed to deliver positive growth...

D'you know what? I bet that with current government policies, we'll see even bigger increases when the next figures are released.
Thanks, Gordon.

There's no denying that Mandlesnake is a master of media manipulation and a very skilled public speaker.

It's probably worth remembering, however, that this does not make him honest. Ted Bundy, after all, was very charming, but it didn't make him a good catch.

He's one of the most detestable people to ever be in government, yet somehow it seems he's now running the country, without winning a single electorate vote, despite having been forced out in disgrace more than once.

Why this man is even on Newsnight even at all is scandalous, quite frankly.

21#:

To be fair to Nick the 'glee' thing was mentioned by Mandelson in a vain attempt to bathe his opponents in a bad light. Most of the things he says you can take with a pinch of salt. It's best just to ignore it! Robin Day by the way would have slaughtered him. He was one interviewer didn't give a tinker's cuss about grace and favour.

Nick,

Judged on 3 days as presenter of Newsnight - congratulations, you did an excellent job! You seemed much more at home in this format than with the time pressures of live news. Newsnight needs to get back to a single presenter for 4-5 days per week and you'd be my choice!

I'm not sure how any of your claimed Mandy strategy is going to restore credibility in Brown or Labour. Even he has failed to instil consistency of message across the party and in some recent cases has personally aggravated the problem. And part of the problem is that Brown, Mandy and all just haven't got a coherent view of where to go from the trough of the recession towards a sunnier economic climate. Mandy trots out an indigestible set of phrases to suggest a strategy but when examined closely it all seems to amount to pretty much nothing.

Oh for a General Election!

If ever they do a remake of Ghostbusters they should call it Spinbusters; the guys go after the biggest political spinners and abyone who has been spun to shouts... 'I've been slimed'

This country has turned into Italy with low grade politicians making low grade remarks with a constant personal agenda for innuendo and smear.

There is no Great in Britain anymore.

64 cyberpaulus

An almost unreadable post, almost worthy of the Zen-meister CEH himself. One comment did catch my eye though ...

"Cameron ....... It is already becoming clear that many of his escapades at P.M.Q.T.cannot disguise his own failing for any alternative solutions."

The idea of PMQs is that the leader of the opposition (and others) ask the questions, and the PM is supposed to answer them - not the other way round, so how does this become "failing for any alternative solutions" ?

#64 cyberpaulus wrote a long, and unquotable, defense of Gordon Brown.

Not sure about all the statistics you gave, e.g. I thought unemployment was rising not falling. And professional economists seem divided about where exactly we are in the recessionary cycle.

However, my main point is this: at some time the contraction of the UK economy will stop. It will happen. It's not a justification of Gordon's economic policies over the last 12 years (in which we were promised an end to bust anyway).

It's still the case that Gordon's policies, even or perhaps especially in the boom times, have left the UK with a huge debt overhang (and still rising) that will act as a drag to economic growth for years to come (on current plans a sustainable deficit will not be achieved until 2035). 60 billion pounds a year in debt interest which could have been used for more productive purposes.

Your post is a good example of the propaganda that we can expect from Labour from now until the election.

#64:

It matters little how soon or how well The Recession will bottom out and show signs of recovery. We have an enormous debt burden which is growing by the day and will hold us back for at least 15 years into the future.

#64

"...many in the Cafe were looking forward to a speech by " one of the greatest heroes of our time. Someone ideally suited to
become the next Nobel Prize winner... It is your very intelligent Sir Gordon Brown !"

Are you sure all those free beers didn't come first?

Nick, it ill-behooves Labour to complain about "the establishment types running the Tory party with big business increasingly rallying to their support.".

'Big business' will always show allegiance to whoever they think are on the winning side. They donate money to political parties simply to curry favour. Nothing new there!

Labour was quite happy to cosy up to 'big business' when it suited them to take the corporate shilling. Now the tide has turned. Tough!

Whilst Obama is very good at rhetoric, in other areas Brown and Obama are remarkably similar in a lot of ways. Both men speak before they think which leads to gaffes they then have to repair. They both pretend they understand the ordinary man and how he thinks. They are both poor leaders and make bad choices on who they use as advisors. They both announce policies that they have not thought through and have very little chance of delivering in their original form. As with obama on healthcare he should have understood that reform is needed before you can accommodate any more healthcare promises. In a recession you would not expect the American public to be happy to pay more money for services. It seems just like Brown, obama is intent of spending the dollars very quickly. I also see no difference between the two men on their approach to the economy, they do not seem to understand the concept of you must earn the money as a Country before you spend the money. They both have prejudices which impedes their ability to be fair minded.

Therefore if Mandelson intends to use Obamas stardust again to revive his flagging fortunes, I do not believe it will be a success. The World is already beginning to wake up to the fact that there is a big difference between what Obama says and what he actually does. His foreign policy is no different to Bush as far as I can see.

However I do believe the Conservatives fear Mandelson in so much as they never quite know what trick the man can pull out of his hat. They know Brown is not the man to beat for political strategy, it is Mandelson.

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obangobang #3: '"Can't wait to see that. Obama is squandering his inheritance on a botched attempt at healthcare reform while the US economy sinks ever lower into the swamp."

The attempt hasn't been completed yet, so what makes you so sure it will be a botched one? It is looking, sadly, increasingly unlikely that any health care reform will pass, much less the kind that Obama wants. But in my opinion if he spent a little more time out on the stump using every ounce of his energy to sell his plans to the American people as aposed to continueing to naively make vane attempts at working "with" the Republicans while simultaneously ccaving into them on every demand, then he would have not squandered nearly as much of his inheritance by now as he has traveling down the path he has chosen. The Republicans have no insentive or noble desire to work with the Democrats, and nor will they. Its high time he got his head out of the clouds and acknowledged that. He needs to take this golden opertunity and ram this legislation through Congress while he has the votes to do so, as you all had the great fortune to do 61 years ago. I must say, if he squanders this golden opertunity, then this latest attempt at health care reform will, I believe, be yet another sad commentary on my nation's curse of sifting through "every other conceivable alternative" before at long last arriving upon the right thing to do. Why can't we be like others and do the right thing first or second?Oh, and I know its not much good news, but reports show that new home sales rose unexpectedly in July. So perhaps, just perhaps, this could be a sign of recovery.

"Over 50% of US citizens now believe their country's best years are in the past."

This is news to me, but honestly I never bought into the whole "our best years are ahead of us" mantra that every presidencial candidate has trotted out every election cycle since FDR. I believe we should just improve what we have, and if we remain at the forfront of the world's leading nations then great!! But if other nations surpass us, then we should just be thankful for our fifteen minutes of fame, and try and secure as much of a positive legasy in the eyes of the world as possible. People have been predicting our downfall for decades, and while we have proven them wrong in the past, I really believe that this time it may be real.

67 hillsidemedia

"Fun without responsibility."
=========
Unfortunately it is people like Mandelson who are allegedly running the country.

Fun ? I don't see anyone laughing.
Responsibility ? I think he's responsible for a lot that goes on, just not accountable to the electorate for it.

#64 cyberpaulus


...Kiss your free bus passes goodbye if Cameron wins!It is already becoming clear that many of his escapades at P.M.Q.T.cannot disguise his own failing for any alternative solutions. By all means,let us support the Tories and return to the days of full unemployment,cuts in benefits, endless strikes, winterfuel allowances cut and so on...

Tenuous in the extreme!
History not your strongpoint??

#64 - my vote for the funniest post ever.

That football match must have been bloody awful.

# 36.

Fingerprint scanners are cheap and not complex, you can buy a USB one for your computer for next to nothing already.

To use it as you propose in a shop (which is not so far as I am aware even mooted amongst the many things that are) as proof of ID is no different to the way we use PIN numbers on our bank cards, in fact it could be less open to abuse than even that system since that needs a link to the bank system to process the transaction which an ID card would not.
If you consider that even in card fraud the main method used was to read the mag strip and also needed to have a camera in place to capture your PIN entry since they were unable to decryt the PIN from the card. I believe the Chip and PIN are more secure than this. Most card fraud now is coming from card not present transactions so neither the Card or PIN is are used, why these are allowed (other than for the convienience of not having to actually get off the sofa to spend money) defeats me.

Anyhow, the fingerprint is encoded onto the Chip and the scanner reads your finger. If the two match then the assumption is that the person with the finger is the person to whom the card belongs (as it has a photo if checked is additional layer of security). To just use it as proof of ID the shop would not need to have any link to the main database in fact for security you would not want it to. Since there is no information on the database which the shop needs to know back and no reason for the database to recieve any info from the transaction (Big Brother notwithstanding of course).

The reader could be a self contained unit with no external links (bar to the power socket) at all. But there is no point in this system for a shop - after all the technology already exists to put a photo on your credit card if the bank or at the end of the day the customer was preapred for the cost and additional hassle involved in doing it.

The carelessness we have in the UK with our bank and other payment cards never struck me until I lived abroad, there I had to take the card with my passport to the bank physically to activate the card, seems rather sensible. At least we now have some activation process in place.

If you have visited the US recently the process of their scanning your fingerprint takes very little time and would take no longer than entering a PIN number from my experience of it. So queues would not be any different.

It wouldn't be much use on the internet I agree without a direct link to the database for verification and that is not sensible.
But then I avoid the internet for shopping as much as possible to minimise the risk. The ID card is not intended for this purpose anyway.

Areas where there would be links to the database (proof of identify when applying for say benefits, free NHS treatment or other such frequently illegally obtained things for example) and information gathering certainly are more difficult to manage but again there are ways and means, after all we trust the details of our credit cards and bank cards generally and thats a two way process. This would be no different. Of course whether you trust the Government or to be more precise it's IT contractors ability to implement a secure system is another matter.

You could imagine the system being able to see if say, this is the second, third etc. claim for benefits they are making would be immediately flagged? Or say as happens the same person were claiming from several different councils the same benefits. These need linkages but I think these are not envisaged initially for the system but likley this is envisaged down the road. Personally I don't have too much of problem with the concept but there are risks and the trust we would need to have in the state for it to happen, they are not currently deserving of.

But unless anything dramatic changes in the next few months the systems dead anyway so there is little to worry about unless of course it's the first promise to be broken by DC, but I doubt it.

DistantTraveller #6: '"As for Brown and Obama 'saving the world', this is just an example of how delusional they have become!"

Hey! Obama never claimed to save the world or expressed a desire to save the world! Please don't lump him in with Brown's desperate to the point of arrogance attitude!

Obama better not believe in boastfulness because Bush did and look where that got us!

69. mikepko wrote:

What part is Mandy's little Brazilian chum (plus the dog) playing in all of this, or has he departed for Browne-r pastures?

=

What, you mean Mandy's lost his taste for Brazilian nuts?

#76 RobinJD

Errrrrrr, isn't David Cameron a spin doctor by trade? Yes, I do still find him pretty slimy.

#87:

Agree on post 64: Could have been written by Brown or Mandy himself. Self deluded and vacuous in nature and weak in all aspects!

Cyberbob

Although you are 70 I am a bit older than you so I have been around long enough to remember how awful Labour governments are. And this is the worst of them all, even worse than the one where we couldnt bury our dead or the PM thought that being on the Eric and Ernie show was what politics was all about.

For twelve years the sound of Things Can only Get Better has stuck in my memory - I did look forward to them with no fear in 1997 because I thought Major was awful. But then, as each year went by and pensions got stiffed, savings became a dirty word, good Ministers like Frank Field came and went, we went into two wars, the first on a lie and the second on a UN prospectus where our mates in Europe (the same Europe that Gordon Brown left at the alter when the signing ceremony was on) sat in their bunkers while our soldiers were sent into the worst possible area, while people like Lord Snooty got fired twice, given a plum job in Europe and then reemerged as a Lord looking like a cross between Rasputin and Nosferatu.

Meanwhile prudence became profligacy, saving the world became the boast, and the House of Commons became synomymous with dodgy movies, moats and flipping. This is not about politics - it is about setting the facts down as anyone with any understanding of what has gone is able to do. I dont know anything about Cameron, but at the moment we are looking at the record of Gordon Brown, and it is awful.

#87

I don't think everyone got the joke ?

A Spaniard turning off the footie for Brown of all people, I ask you how obvious a clue was that.

I would ahve thought that Obama's advisors would steer clear of any perceived hook-up between him and Brown. Obama seems to favour a more whole Europe approach, and also still retains some vestige of youthful vigour in both deed and demeanour, whereas poor old Gordon is visibly ageing.

fairlyopenmind wrote at 72
"Anyone else spot the report from the Commons Public Accounts Committee?It says that alcohol-related hospital admissions in 2006/07 had risen to 811,000. That was a 71 percent rise in four years."

Yes. I also noted that between midnight and 5am three quarters of A & E cases are linked to alcohol! That surely demonstrates the cost of the ridiculous 24 hour drinking law.
I also saw the pictures of Newquay residents demanding zero tolerance on drunkeness and their right to be able to sleep at night.

Nick,

Congratulations on the Mandelson interview. I say this because I have been massively disappointed by the lobby, who have seemed to allow the government to get away on numerous occasions with everything ranging from distortion, to manipulation of the lobby and worse of all - lies.

Your interview - did at last - seem to force Mandleson to at least confront the odious / dubious side of the government.

Finally - it seems clear that the PM is clueless and that Peter Mandelson is the person the COnservatives have to defeat.

#84

"The attempt hasn't been completed yet, so what makes you so sure it will be a botched one? It is looking, sadly, increasingly unlikely that any health care reform will pass, much less the kind that Obama wants."

"People have been predicting our downfall for decades, and while we have proven them wrong in the past, I really believe that this time it may be real."

So you are disagreeing with me by, er, agreeing with me.

In that case I agree with you.

#64, cyberpaulus wrote:
"DO NOT KISS YOUR FREE BUS PASS GOODBYE, YET !
When watching a tv football game in a busy Spanish Cafe recently,someone politely wondered if I would not mind switching over to another Channel as many in the Cafe were looking forward to a speech by " one of the greatest heroes of our time. Someone ideally suited to
become the next Nobel Prize winner... It is your very intelligent Sir Gordon Brown !"..."

Cyber,

It is often the case that a politician is better appreciated by an overseas "audience" than his local electorate.
Obama's standing is pretty high in a wide swathe of the world - but his local rating has plummeted in 6 months to George Dubya levels.

I'm well aware that Brown has engineered a G20 decision to "commit" Trillions of dollars to stimulate world economic activity.
I still can't work out exactly who is supposed to provide this money. We can't. We're broke. The US is in dire straits (has been for years!). The Japanese are struggling. Germany is doing better, but hasn't got a lot of spare cash. China sits on a massive amount of dosh - but it still has 1 billion people it needs to drag out of poor conditions in its own back yard. I don't see the Spanish running forward with boat-loads of cash. The IMF only gets any cash from "real" nations, most of whom are cash-strapped. So are we about to see another level of International Pretend Money, which would make our made up Quantative Easing stuff look like chicken-feed?

Tell me, pray, just how many Spanish banks have required nationalisation, to prevent their total collapse? It seems to be rather less than 1. Why? Because, for all our nonsense about "Spanish practices", they had a regulatory system that WORKED. We didn't.

I can't get too excited about the Dow Jones index getting above 9,000. It was above 14,000 a couple of years ago. And guess who most influences the purchase or sales levels of stocks and shares? Why, exactly the same financial institutions who got us into this mess in the first place...

Our lot couldn't run a whelk stall. For goodness sake, the guy put in to run UKFI - the QANGO that oversees BILLIONS of tax-payer backed investments across banks - just quit. He seemed to have been perceived as a smart bloke. But was still being paid GBP 143,000 a year, having been transferred from a civil service role. That's a lot by my standards, but there are plenty of folk even in local government being paid more than that...

You'd have thought that, if it was OK for Tony Blair to jack in his Premiership and MP status - then be allowed to sign up with a Bank as a consultant (God help us all!) - Brown would have worked out that somebody managing BILLIONS of our debts would deserve a bit more.

For goodness sake, the dozy Labour apparatchik who runs the Charities Commission gets about GBP100,000 p.a. for a 3 day week...

Your Spanish friends no doubt appreciate Gordon more than I do, because they know he's a bloke who says some quite decent stuff on TV. But they go home at night and relax.
I go home and wonder just which new tax will emerge by the time I wake up in the morning - and worrying in case Gordon ("I always tell the truth") Brown popped in through a window to check if I still have a bit of cash left in my wallet. And worry if some daft new and wasteful "initiative" will be announced, to place a millstone around my children's necks.

Brown never got to grips with the saying KISS - "Keep It Simple, Stupid". Everything he's started is so complex that you need a lawyer to work out whether you're allowed to claim for something, whether you completed a complicated form correctly, whether any payment made by a government department can be claimed back, because the rules are so rediculous that even the "experts" don't seem to know what the rules were supposed to mean.

I'd be happy for Brown to become head of some international think tank. Even the UN. Anything really, except carrying on as PM. I just can't afford any more of his "caring" approach. It's crippling us financially. I wouldn't mind so much - but MASSES of his commitments aren't coming from current taxes, so he's crippling my kids, too!

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