Fifth Incarnation of the Prince of Darkness

When government ministers in Ireland make a mess of things, nothing happens to them. They just carry on as usual. Such is our green Banana Republic (without bananas).

When the same happens in Britain, the minister who misbehaved, mislead parliament or was found with his pants down in one way or another has to resign, and usually quite quickly.

To Peter Mandelson this happened not once, but twice. And he is still one of the most hated men in the UK and in his own party.
Some might say this is strange, and that the British Labour Party is ungrateful to a man who was for years part of the team that made it electable again, after nearly 18 years in opposition. But in politics thanks is the last thing anyone should expect, regardless what he does.

Mandelson is a very bright man, there is no doubt about it. But he is also devious and a true schemer if there ever was one. Since his appointment as Labour's director of communications in 1985 he has done plenty to earn his nickname "The Prince of Darkness".

Together with Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Alistair Campbell (Blair's devious press secretary and communications director) Mandelson was part of the quartet that changed the Labour Party and turned it into "New Labour".
He was also the first of the many Labour "spin doctors". In fact he was the father of all spin and creator of the black art of political shape-shifting which brought "New Labour" to power in 1997 and is still widely practised throughout the British government.

His ministerial career looked at first very promising. After Blair's election victory, Mandelson became his special troubleshooter as "Minister without Portfolio" in the Cabinet Office.
A year later he was promoted to Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, but soon after he was forced to resign. Newspapers discovered and published details of a dodgy deal he did a few years earlier when buying a house way above his income level.

For ten months he was in "the wilderness" (as UK politicians call a state of disgrace), but nine years ago, in October 1999, Tony Blair brought him back as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. This time he lasted 16 months, during which he oversaw the creation of the power-sharing agreement between unionists and nationalists. But he was never very popular with either side. There was great suspicion about him and his intensions, not least after he began the job with a strange gaffe. In his very first speech he referred to himself as the "Secretary of State for Ireland." Not the kind of thing Irish people like to hear, especially not if they are nationalists.

In January 2001 Peter Mandelson had to resign again over an interference at the Home Office, where he had intervened on behalf of the billionaire Hinduja brothers, Indian businessmen who had obtained British citizenship with his help. It did not help that the brothers were investigated by the Indian government over an arms selling scandal.

In the 2001 general election he retained his seat, but stayed on the backbenches and kept fairly quiet. It came as a bit of a surprise to many when Tony Blair gave him a forth incarnation in the Autumn of 2004 - just four years ago - and appointed him as the British EU Commissioner. He was given the Trade portfolio and soon made himself a lot of new enemies throughout Europe and around the world over his attitudes in the World Trade negotiations.

Especially angry were the Irish farmers, who even staged one of their rare mass protests over Mandelson's policies in Dublin earlier this year.

After four years in Brussels it was an even bigger surprise that Gordon Brown, Blairs successor as British Prime Minister, called him back into the Cabinet in his recent reshuffle.
Mandelson is once again heading the Department of Trade & Industry, now renamed Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, and is also President of the Board of Trade.

But since Mandelson is no longer an MP and Labour does not want to risk yet another by-election - having lost the recent ones spectacularly and facing another one soon in Scotland - Mandelson was made a Lord instead. This is the first time for ages that a Secretary of State sits in the House of Lords instead of the House of Commons. And for Mandelson - now The Right Hon. Baron Mandelson of Foy and Hartlepool (which is his former constituency) - it is the fifth political incarnation.

They say that cats have nine lives. I wonder how many the "Prince of Darkness" has...