Did I ever tell you about the time I had breakfast with Peter Mandelson? Like too many of my anecdotes, I do not come out of it terribly well. It was back in New Labour days before he was Lord Mandelson, in between the resignations that kept interrupting his stellar career.
Mandelson was in Edinburgh. I was a political editor looking for a story. The only time he could meet me was at breakfast. And so I rocked up at the Caledonian Hotel, where he was staying. Being first to arrive, I ordered the full Scottish gutbuster.
Mandelson eventually glided into his seat and summoned a waiter. He would like a teacup of warm water with a slice of lemon on the side, he said. No, nothing else, thank you.
And so I munched my way through Stornoway black pudding, Ayrshire bacon, tattie scones, a wobbly fried egg and a silver rack of white toast, washed down with freshly squeezed orange juice and a cafetière of coffee. Meanwhile the prince of darkness took the occasional sip of warm water from his china teacup.
Mandelson is a master of the powerplay. In his latest manifestation he is an informal adviser to Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, and Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, while buddying up to Morgan McSweeney, Labour’s campaign director and the most powerful operator in Starmer’s backroom team.
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Which is why an article Mandelson wrote for last weekend’s Sunday Times received more attention than might normally be due a former cabinet minister last in power a dozen years ago.
Not for the first time his target was Gordon Brown. Mandelson took aim at Brown’s constitutional blueprint, A New Britain, and its ambitious plan to rewire the British state. “Those who believe that all Labour needs is to give Starmer a ‘bolder’ definition by . . . re-enacting last century’s heroic struggle to take down the House of Lords (this time by abolishing it altogether) need to ask themselves how many target voters will be excited by [the] prospect,” he wrote.
Instead, he said, Labour needed policies “to transform the NHS, overhaul educational attainment . . . revitalise the criminal justice system and renew towns and villages through a transfusion of private and public investment”.
Quite apart from being a classic example of false choice, this was a category error. The need for a rewired British state stems not from a wonkish obsession with the constitution but from a recognition that punters no longer have faith in politicians. If you chap on doors and ask householders’ views on constitutional reform you will be met with general bafflement. If you ask the same householders if they feel abandoned by heedless politicians many miles away in Westminster, the nodding heads could, if connected to a pulley system, meet the nation’s renewable energy needs.
Only constitutional change can take power and money from Whitehall and put it in the hands of communities that feel forgotten. Only constitutional change can provide the necessary checks and balances against shameless abuse of power, whether by parties or individuals. Only constitutional change can secure Holyrood’s autonomy and plug Scotland into the core of Whitehall decision-making, alongside the other nations and regions of the UK. Only constitutional change can give politics back to the people.
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This, I suspect, is why Mandelson is discomfited by the Brown plan. Not only does it scrap the House of Lords in which he has sat, unelected, since 2008. It also diffuses the concentration of power in which he thrives. Less chance for a quiet word in the right ear. Less mystery, more light. The prince of darkness might understandably prefer the dark.
I was about to say Mandelson misses the point but of course Mandelson misses nothing. Instead he chooses to disparage the radical ambition of constitutional change because it does not fit his purpose. How would I characterise this purpose? A Labour government that puts up a sign saying “under new management” but otherwise leaves the fixtures and fittings intact. Mandelson rewrites Lampedusa: for things to stay the same, everything must stay the same.
Who Starmer listens to matters. My Times colleague Rachel Sylvester recently wrote with great insight about the contrasting advice offered by two former prime ministers, Brown and Sir Tony Blair. This has been characterised as a choice between redistribution of wealth and reform of public services. My heart sinks. This is simply the continuation of the exhausting TeeBee-GeeBee wars that scarred Labour’s last period in power. Give us a break. We deserve better. We can do both.
Far from being disheartened by Mandelson’s article, I take encouragement from it. The very fact that he has been reduced to signalling his opinions in newsprint shows he is losing the argument.
If Mandelson’s warnings were being heeded by Starmer’s team there would be no need to go public in an attempt to whip up a political backlash.
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Starmer is not daft. He knows the economic inheritance from the Tories will curb Labour’s room for manoeuvre. Only last week there were reports the shadow cabinet has been asked to find new policies that cost no money. A cynic might point out political renewal fits that bill. Starmer also recognises the valuable opportunity for what George HW Bush called “the vision thing”.
Where power is exercised matters. Who it benefits matters. Power, after all, is the breakfast of champions.
