The internet is a wonderful thing; it enables me to discover that in my absence in foreign parts, Nick Robinson skewered Lord Mandelson on this morning’s Today programme.
Apparently Mandelson – who is busy masterminding Labour’s “efficiency savings” – denied that Gordon Brown had ever used the words “Tory cuts versus Labour investment”. Robinson had the Hansard record and quoted it to Mandelson. I would love to have heard Mandelson’s reaction; I must try to find it on iPlayer later on.
I am astonished, however, that Mandelson tried to make the denial at all. It has become such a well-worn theme of Gordon’s – I have myself been banging on about it for weeks – that it’s pretty insulting to the competence of the BBC’s highly competent political editor to deny that the words were ever spoken.
Of course, don’t expect an on-side broadcast media to pick up on this.
As ever, they will more interested in manipulating half-baked stories and sensationalised gossip to their own advantage, than exposing a Labour minister as an outright liar.