MP, Minister, back bencher, minister, backbencher, Euro Commissioner, Lord, Minister, Prime Minister…….is there anything that Peter Mandelson cannot do? Prime minister is the latest prediction in the press, as reported in the Daily Mirror and other papers on August 2nd.
If the Justice Ministry reforms the House of Lords and allows the newly ennobled to renounce their peerages, a safe North East seat has been found for the boy, and from there he will be eligible to stand as party leader.
From a position as a lowly labour party functionary Peter has had it all. He is as we keep being told a grandson of Herbert Morrison. But was hereditary principle ever enshrined in the Labour party constitution? Or have the reforms of the Blair years so robbed the Labour Party of any ideology and commitment to belief that anyone who can appear to the Sun and Mail as a strong man will immediately be hailed as a the next party saviour ?(And when did the tabloid press get a say? Who voted for that at Labour Party conference?)
Called a brilliant strategist by his admirers, in terms of success as a politician, his record tells of a man whose achievements lie in his past as the architect of new labour, and whose success has been taken at his own measure. Mandelson has been the architect and chief propagandist for the Third way in politics. He has consistently railed against the solutions of “old left” and is unapologetic in his belief that no one cares for the distinction between the public and private sector, nor in whether services are publicly or privately financed.
”I once said that I was relaxed about people getting very rich as a result of their own honest efforts. I remain so. Markets, enterprise, and competition require incentives if we are to encourage greater economic success”.
Perhaps that relaxed attitude arises from his constant social climbing with the rich and super rich, an attitude that led to two resignations from ministerial office. Once for most people would be a lesson, twice probably life changing. But just before he was lifted back into office last year, Peter was causing headlines after holidaying with a Russian plutocrat and a Tory front bencher on a yacht in the Med.
Only his achievements as a spokesperson for new Labour neo liberalism cannot be denied. Profiles from neither of the resignation years point to a significant record of achievement, unless his job as minister for the Millennium Dome is judged as a success. As a backbencher in the early years of this century, his chief role was as a mischief maker and cheer leader for the Euro fanatics. He entered the debate over Britain’s entry into the Euro on the pro side, naturally. In 2003 UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis, warned Mandelson to stop creating divisions within the Party over the Euro debate. Dave said:
“People on the fringe with no ministerial office should not be trying to undermine the clear policy of the Government by portraying it wrongly as a contest on who can outmanoeuvre who. Mandelson’s childish mischief is designed to grab the headlines for personal reasons. His sort of obsessive behavior aimed at creating splits has been condoned for far too long and it must stop now.
“Labour policy is very clear - any decision on holding a referendum on the Euro will be based on the five economic tests. The people of this country want to know whether it is in our economic interests to enter the Euro before any referendum is called. Their decision won’t be based on a twice ex cabinet minister’s silly spin.
So his record as a Euro commissioner has to be interesting. Peter has always been committed to Europe, a particular kind of Europe. So what was his view of where Europe should be going? Did Peter challenge the ongoing neo-liberal consensus? In a word, no. His curiously old fashioned views seem forged in the era of Gaitskell and Jenkins. In his extensive public writing on Europe there is no engagement whatever with left wing critics of the European project. His aim is always the little Englander Euro-sceptic wing of the Tory party. This is either deliberate blindness or intellectual cowardice.
His pro Europeanism is founded in the “building Europe to protect against European wars” and “bigger is better in international negotiation”.
“The fate of our economy and personal prosperity is bound up with the rest of Europe” he writes. Mandelson sees that problems arise as a result of concerns about MEPs expenses or over regulation from Brussels. At the time of the constitutional referenda in France and the Netherlands, Mandelson was sure the rejection of the Treaty was nothing to do with concerns over how Europe was governed, but about a failure to inspire confidence in the European project. (Maybe in a curious way that failure was because voters had some knowledge of the proposals for governance). His proposals for the future of Europe must sound alarm bells.
“The situation today is that these essential insights of our Europeanness remain valid. But the collective institutions and the systems we built in the last century to underpin them have outlived their time- in particular social consensus corporatism, the social insurance welfare state and the centralised universal public services that played such a crucial role in the era of mass industrial society”. He goes further,
“The old European social model was a great achievement but it was flawed. In most European countries, it was built around the protection existing jobs -through legal right and collective bargaining. These arrangements worked well in an era of slower economic change, when employers could manage any need for job losses and redundancies smoothly over a long period. Today in a more rapidly changing world, firms have to be faster on their feet. Today’s innovation may be overtaken by tomorrow’s technology or new market demands. That is why in the world today, our existing job protection arrangements, which put an emphasis on preserving the status quo, deter new investment in Europe.”
As a European Commissioner, he put these views into practice, and demonstrated his commitment to these ideals. Mandelson was dedicated to the cause of trade liberalisation. His principle objective was securing the opening up of the service sectors of many of the poorest countries in the world. Within the EU there has been debate about the so called services directive. From the WTO the EU attempted to secure a world wide services directive. Rich countries pay lip service to the idea of trade justice and development, but at the end of the day only want to cut the best possible deals for their own multi nationals. Mandelson says what he means and means what he says.
His record since returning to the UK as a minister shows that neither his views nor his practice of politics has changed. His appointment was described as a “gamble” by Gordon Brown and a step backwards by most left wing commentators. The more charitable on the right wing saw it as an attempt by Brown to heal the wounds of the Brown –Blair feud. Within weeks however, he was involved in two major controversies, delaying family friendly employment reforms that would “frustrate business” and threw his weight behind proposals for the partial privatisation of the Royal mail.
This was against the background of Warwick II in the summer of 2008 where a clear commitment was given to maintaining the post office within the public sector as wholly publicly owned. Sticking to Labour party commitments has never been seen by Mandelson as a priority. After a strong campaign by the CWU the proposals have been shelved, at best to be forgotten about at worst delayed. But the two major controversies illustrate the pro business bias that always follows Mandelson in his business of practicing politics.
So is the idea of Mandy for PM a slow summer season joke by the media or an attempt by New Labour to further secure its hegemony? All this is against a background in which the Labour Party itself seems doomed to extinction. Extract union membership and the overall picture, with very few exceptions is of constituency parties unable to function at the basic level, of meetings inquorate or non existent, where campaigning on the ground and involving the community has simply gone.
The belief proclaimed in 1997 that “Things can only get better” has been replaced has been replaced by a cynicism that the Labour Government has been for the few not the many, and that rather than challenging inequality in society it has been content to apply a few sticking plasters while multi national corporations and banks continued to ensure that they made money for themselves and kept it. From this point of view Mandelson is an unlikely saviour based on both what he preaches and what he has practised. There may be some who can persuade themselves that as a PM, he would be a pragmatist rather than a dogmatist.
Is Peter liable to compromise? Well here’s what he said (New Statesman 6 October 2008):-
“If anyone thinks that the party has a future by splitting the difference between the old left and new Labour, that we can take six of one and half a dozen of the other and rebuild the party around that, we will go downhill fast. Because the country has to have a real sense of what we are about, a clear definition, and there has to be a hard edge to the party in what we stand for and how we present ourselves to the electorate. Not nodding in this direction, then that direction, pleasing this group, reaching out to the other, without any clear, purposeful direction”.