Memoirs of Britain’s ‘prince of darkness’ stir political row focus 07/14/2010

Memoirs of Britain’s ‘prince of darkness’ stir political row

focus

07/14/2010
LONDON — A bitter row over the gossipy memoirs of top British politician Peter Mandelson is threatening to overshadow the Labour party’s election of a new leader to replace Gordon Brown.

Mandelson was, with Brown and Tony Blair, part of the most powerful troika in British politics until center-left Labour was voted out of office and into opposition in May for the first time since 1997.

The flamboyant arch-spinner, nicknamed the “prince of darkness,” was Brown’s deputy prime minister and a controversial minister who quit twice under Blair, giving him an unrivalled insight into the turbulent New Labour he helped build.

Now the 56-year-old is telling all about his years as the power behind the throne in a memoir entitled “The Third Man,” out Thursday, which has drawn a furious reaction from some Labour colleagues.

Early extracts published by The Times detail how Brown’s hopes of clinging to power in May by forming a coalition with the centrist Liberal Democrats were scuppered by LibDem leader Nick Clegg, who said he could not work with him.

Clegg now holds Mandelson’s old job, serving as deputy to Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron in a coalition government which is imposing punishing spending cuts in a bid to reduce a record deficit accrued under Labour.

It is the timing of Mandelson’s book which has caused anger — the memoirs have thrown the spotlight on Labour’s feud-ridden past, in the middle of a four-month-long leadership election.

Charlie Whelan, Brown’s former spin doctor and one of his closest allies, accused Mandelson, who ran the party’s failed re-election bid, of having concentrated on his book, not the election, in the run-up to May’s crunch poll.

“Peter ran the worst general campaign in Labour’s history. Nobody knew what the message was at all. It was a disaster from beginning to end,” he told the Sunday Telegraph.... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100714com5.html