Tories Must Beware of Mandelson

Janet Daley, Daily Telegraph June 7, 2009

Given that things are going so swimmingly for the Conservatives, it would seem churlish to nag away about their possible weaknesses. So I won't. What I will do is just offer a teensy little warning.

But first, the good news. Labour has clearly been much more damaged by the expenses farrago than the Tories. In the local elections at least, the moats and the horse manure, the tennis courts and the duck ponds, have not, as was feared, revived the old "braying toff" stereotype. David Cameron's makeover (sorry, modernisation) of the party remains intact: for what it is worth, the public image of the Conservatives as a bunch of unobjectionable middle- (not upper-) class nice guys now seems to have been permanently installed. What is more, the party performed well even against the Liberal Democrats, who were actually less tainted by the expenses scandal than any other major party.

Presumably, this outcome is not unconnected to Mr Cameron's own robust response to the revelations about expenses abuse. His anger and revulsion came across as both genuine and effectual. Those of us who have long argued for more visible passion from the leadership have hopes that this experience may be salutary. (What the Lib Dem showing might also suggest, of course, is that these elections were not all about expenses.)

Then there are the surreal events of the past few days, in which the Government has reached levels of almost unfathomable indignity. Surely, it would be plausible to think, the country will never be able to take this Prime Minister – who cannot even sack his own Chancellor – seriously again. And there is the survival of the man himself: not replacing Gordon Brown as leader must be the greatest gift a governing party has presented to an Opposition. So what's to worry? The future is assured: the future is Tory.

But if one thing has become indubitably, rather grotesquely, clear, it is that nothing – absolutely nothing – will cause Mr Brown to go for an election before he is required to. That means, assuming his backbenchers do not rise up and defenestrate him, that he has roughly a year: just possibly long enough for the economy to have passed its worst point. And isn't there just the remotest possibility that – in what even he must recognise as his absolutely, positively last chance – Mr Brown might do something tactically clever?

In that extraordinary feat of bravado that was his Friday press conference, he made some remarks that may have escaped notice amid the blood and gore in which he was steeped, citing three objectives for his new Cabinet's immediate attention. The first was to clean up politics in the wake of the expenses scandal and the second was to deal with the economic crisis: both unsurprising.

But the third was to carry on with what he called "the next stage of reform" of public services in order to create tailored services "more responsive to people's needs". And this was not just a throwaway line. He returned to the theme repeatedly, talking of "putting power in the hands of patients and parents", and allowing "the public to control services themselves". At one point, he implied that a detailed "prospectus" for these reforms would be forthcoming very shortly.

Could he finally, in sheer desperation, be about to revive the old Blairite reform programme, and so present a challenge to over-cautious Conservative policy? Of course, Mr Brown has been saying things like this ever since he arrived in the job, and almost nothing of any significance has come of it. That, in fact, is precisely the point made by the various members of the Shadow Cabinet to whom I have spoken in the past 48 hours. Surely, they say, the electorate would not now believe that a Brown government would ever deliver real power to the consumers of public services, and so make a substantive change in the relationship between the state and the ordinary citizen.

But there is one interesting difference between the Brown of yesterday and today: his entire strategy is being orchestrated by Lord Mandelson. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Brown has just appointed the Blairite Andy Burnham as Health Secretary, in place of that loveable old public-sector trade unionist Alan Johnson. Will it be part of Mr Burnham's brief to introduce NHS reforms that outflank the Tories? (Alas, there is still the intractable Ed Balls in charge of schools, but couldn't even he be made to see the light as the election neared and the popularity of Tory education policies looked too much of a threat?)

As for Mr Johnson, couldn't his working-class credentials be put to good use at the Home Office by allowing him to utter robust statements about crime and immigration that would seem more in sympathy with the concerns of those council estates that are being courted by the BNP?

Again, my Tory front-bench friends insist that none of this would wash. Labour had a previous home secretary, David Blunkett, whose empathetic bond with working-class people was at least as strong as Mr Johnson's, and who went so far as to talk of communities feeling "swamped" by incoming foreigners – to absolutely no effect on the Government's immigration policy.

Let me make one thing clear. I am not – repeat not – suggesting that Labour has a hope in hell of winning a general election, whenever it is held. What the Mandelson goal must be (whether he has told Mr Brown this or not) is simply to limit the damage. To accomplish this, he must mitigate the effectiveness of the Cameron programme. By conjuring up more far-reaching reforms of the public services than the Tories dare propose, he could cast enough doubt on Mr Cameron's political courage and principle to make the difference between a respectable defeat and utter annihilation of the New Labour project.

I worry about the Cameron team's complacent streak: the reluctance to react quickly and perceptively to changed circumstances. Would they, for example, be willing to abandon their rigid self-denying ordinance on the future of the NHS if Labour opened up the debate?

The lesson of this past week is that the object of the Labour exercise has changed: the party might go down in flames under Brown, but it can rise again under whomever Lord Mandelson chooses to anoint. This is the endgame and it will be played to the death.

Comments: 17

I dont think Cameron is really the answer to the question however he seems competent enough and a bright lad to hopefully lead the great unwashed back to reality. His Blairite friends and marriages of convenience with the likes of Zac probably make him a single term pm however if boris puts in a good second in london he could well be the answer to the question for a long time.

How can Mandelson, twice fired by Blair for dishonesty, ever be expected to be taken seriously by the electorate, when the expenses and corruption theme will remain in the front of peoples minds for some time to come. We can rely on the media for that focus. Scandalson is a nasty person and the minute he believes he has the weakened Brown in his pocket out will come the knife of that once in a lifetime opportunity and he will play for the leadership. Brown and Balls were involved in the previous demise of Scandelson. Scandalson may win the leadership of a disintegrated and terminally sick Labour Party but he will never lead Labour to anything but a long term in exile and possible bankrupcy. In fact he will be hard pressed to find a constituency party that would select him as prospective candidate for 2010. At some time after Labours defeat expect him to find a comfortable 'bolt-hole' in the EU and be the padrino recruiter for his few redundant friends. To sit in disgrace and exile in the UK is too much like hard work for this useless spin-man. A prima donna of the dungheap.

Makes no difference who wins. Westminster is a parish council and Cameron will do nothing to change this.

Interesting article - but I think that the age when Conservatives had to fear Mandelson is gone. There are vast swathes of the Labour Party that hate the man - if you can stomach it, look at the CiF pages on the Guardian website. There he is portrayed as the man responsibe for the betrayal of everything Old Labour stood for. They grunt and howl for the return of Old Labour values. This is good news as any fule kno, because Old Labour couldn't win a hopping contest with a one legged man. Mandelson's not an MP. He's not even electable, having been forced to resign twice from Government. He has baggage in spades - in fact what marks out the weakness of this administration (I use the term loosely) is that this jumped up PR monkey is seen as indispensable to propping up the PM. And now I see that according to the Times, Balls has "declared war" on him. I can't wait. It'll be like watching Pol Pot & Ceaucescu punch each other in the face whilst being whipped with eels. And the Lions won. Great day.

Lord Mandelson does not play for second place. Dave's response to all questions about expenses are simply - we will look at it. He is neither decisive or courageous or he would call on his party to resign en masse and force a general election. His arrogant swagger, his bullying demeanour and his vanity will be his downfall.

There is a very shining light who is a proper Tory, people are looking for a proper good humoured Tory to lead this country out of the gloom. Some one with focus and who is resonant with the people- a happy laugh and a quick brain- Who is he? who could convert 39%- 45% into perhaps 59%-63% + turn out? BORIS of course, Mayor of London!

By blindsiding his opposition Brown may use Tory ideas & what he thinks are Tory plans and make them his own from now until election time. To regain popularity & recapture the votes lost he will have to clean up the Commons, cut back on Social services waste, maybe even scrap the new Trident - so he can justify the extra expense to send more troops & material to Afghanistan. What he won't do is relinquish any real power only apparent powers. The EU business & a referendum could be be a weakness to exploit. We should be aware of false promises for this guy is likely to promise the farm to keep power. I agree with K.Monaghan that Mandelson may well be pulling the strings and there to create a new, 'feel good factor'about Labour, in typical Spin Doctor fashion.

But Janet - all this assumes that the Labour MP's will actually go along with these reforms. And that is a very big IF indeed if the Post Office part -privatisation is anything to go by.

You know Ms Janet daley, You may beright, in your article Miracles do happen, don't they? Beside, we the Electorates of- UK-today are totally defferent- from the past? Some of us, we change our mind while we're reading ballt- paper, and put our-X-in another not the one, we supported for years? The Question is, what's in it for you? The question is how you going to hurt us we the Community?

"Labour has clearly been much more damaged by the expenses farrago than the Tories." Are you saying then Janet that tory voters are more tolerant of tory piggies with the noses in the expenses trough. How shameful. "Cameron's own robust response to the revelations about expenses abuse. His anger and revulsion came across as both genuine and effectual." Oh come on Janet, he said nothing but some warm platitudes and proposed nothing serious.

I am old enough to know about old tricks and the first days of June 2010 - if Gordon Brown chooses to push things to the limit - are very far into the future and, as they say, 24 hours is a long time in politics. Gordon Brown will keep going with the hope that in coming months both Conservatives and Lib Dems will have plenty of opportunities to make mistakes that Labour might take advantage of. The big obstacle for Gordon Brown is the fact that many of the people around him are short-term opportunists that might get cold feet at very short notice if the media keep talking about their misdemeanours. I am sure a whole brigade of Labour diggers is working very hard to find out about anything they can possible use to tarnish the reputation of the Conservative Party.

Ethel the Frog, why do you describe a right winger as "rabid"? You and the BNP are just two sides of the same coin, with nothing but smallminded prejudice and hate for those who disagree with your own puerile political views.

OK. So Labour go for a reformist agenda. This is possibly the best case scenario. They "soften up" the electorate (who are quite sceptical about some reforms - fearing the end of universal "free" provision of "skools'n'ospitals") enabling Cameron's government to be bolder than it otherwise would be.

Delighted to see that the most rabid of right wingers still sees Mandy as Darth Vader.

every one sounds like frightened children. He only a man, albeit a devious one. We know what he is doing and it peddaling to stave of the inevitable. If people thought they would go without a fight, you never been in a fight before. Mr cameron must continue delivering the body blows he is landing, as labour won't acknowledge that any of them have done anything wrong. They have left themselves open to savage attacks. they are up a blind alley and there is no way back.

Ms Daley The poll swing from Tory to Libdem at the council elections was +9%. Now I agree, 44% Tories last time was a high water. But I don't think you can say that the Tories 'trounced the Lib Dems'. They won two major councils in the South West off them. But in terms of share of the vote, they lost ground. Still winning, but you could argue that the Lib Dems came out best of the three parties, which is not uncorrelated with their expenses reputation.... It's not really that important, though!

Despite Labour taking a kicking at the polls on Thursday and the desperate re-shuffle to keep Milliband and Dartling from causing Brown further pain, as a Tory voter I am worried at the extended brief Mandelson now has. There is no doubt he has quelled Cabinet dissent and kept Brown in a job; for that he has no doubt ensured unlimited power to call the shots. He is in effect the PM in all but name. While Mandelson is in charge I fear the Tory part should be extremely worried. This man will stop at nothing to ensure a 4th Labour term. The Sun is still on-side with Labour and the BBC too. It is still muted in its coverage. By Friday eveing it was quite obvious it was taking the line from Mandelson that there would be no call for Brown to step-down. These two organisations are petrified of Mandelson. The Tory party need to find a match for his powers and fast.

Tories Must Beware of Mandelson

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