Today’s Guardian carries a lengthy G2 interview by Decca Aitkenhead with Peter Mandelson, who has today Easyjetted back to Britain to assume the reins of power minus the intervention of his BlackBerry.
The article is an account of a day Aitkenhead spent shadowing Mandelson, who appears to be determinedly attempting to erase his former Prince of Darkness persona and replace it with something altogether cuddlier.
This is, in fact, a process that has been continuing for some time. Last June, Mandelson told the Telegraph that Gordon Brown should lighten up and “introduce a bit of humour and jollity” to his work. Now, the First Secretary of State confides that he doesn’t see himself as a “big beast”, but rather as a “kindly pussycat”, keen to inject an element of avuncular “fun” into the workings of government:
I take huge pride in the younger members of cabinet, who knew me in the 90s and associated me with winning. They’ve benefited from my support and advice, and they don’t feel the suspicion towards me. They’ve wanted to work with me. Appreciated my age and experience. And my – my sense of fun.”
Was fun missing from cabinet before his return?
“Well, I think it was missing from when I was in government before.”
And, it would appear, those callow cabinet colleagues are responding warmly to that Mandelsonian approachability:
In part, his power derives from a ministerial brief straddling almost every policy area of government, and in part from colleagues’ eagerness to consult his advice; Ed Miliband recently described him as a “benign uncle”…
All this looks suspiciously like reinvention; reinvention with a purpose.
Mandelson acknowledges that Labour’s chances at the next general election are “no better than evens”, but says that afterwards, win or lose, he will want to “remain somewhere in the world”.
When it is put to him that Jack Straw’s Constitutional Renewal Bill may give him a route back to the Commons and a tilt at the leadership, he says no more than that he is “not anticipating any change for himself”.
Such an extensive article, timed to coincide with Mandelson’s stint as Gordon’s locum, is of considerable significance. If not precisely a panegyric, it is nonetheless highly flattering. Furthermore, it has been picked up by the BBC, Telegraph and Times, all of which repeat with some relish the “pussycat” line.
Mandelson does nothing for nothing. If he hasn’t yet decided to run for the leadership (that decision would probably depend on the scale of a Labour defeat), he clearly hasn’t ruled it out.
Right now, he’s happy just to position himself and bide his time.
And his reinvention of himself as “Pussycat Peter” is part of that process.
