Thursday December 24, 1998
A sudden departure
Blair is left isolated
Leader
In the end he went, and he went quickly and with some dignity. In place of the previous day's blustering denials there was a quiet acceptance that he had behaved foolishly and should pay the ultimate price. Thus departed the architect of New Labour.
But not just the architect: the builder, the thinker, the schemer, the weaver and the spinner. It is difficult to overstate the contribution of Peter Mandelson to the Blairite project. His departure will be a deeply-felt blow.
Of course, this unexpectedly dramatic final act of the political year may not prove to be the end of the story. There may be, as the Americans say, another shoe to drop. The lesson of all scandals - and certainly our own past experience of Conservative sleaze - is that the first dollop of murk to be exposed is rarely the last. Paul Routledge's upcoming biography on Mr Mandelson may contain more murk. But if what we know now is all there is to know, then yesterday's move is both rare and welcome. Rather than endure the Chinese water torture of the Major years Labour has acted with some class. Tony Blair has always been determined to avoid the 'ditherer' tag that blighted his predecessor, and yesterday he acted decisively. This was a clean exit from a situation that was becoming untenable.
Removing Geoffrey Robinson, who had raised too many questions for too long to hold on, was a similarly restorative exercise. Labour will not be able to recover its pre-1997 status as the whiter-than-white party of anti-sleaze, but that was foregone a year ago when the Government appeared to take £1 million from Bernie Ecclestone while reversing its policy on Formula One. Even so, yesterday's action by the Prime Minister - removing perhaps his most trusted minister - will prove that Labour is at least serious about rooting out suspect behaviour, even if it can no longer claim to be immune from it in the first place.
This was not Neil Hamilton or Tim Smith-style sleaze. Far from it. Our view
remains that Peter Mandelson was guilty of vanity, rather than venality and that since the source of his funding - a loan, not a gift - was from a ministerial colleague rather than an outside businessman, it hardly plumbs the depths of the Tory years. The problem was a conflict of interest, an appearance of impropriety and a failure to make rapid and full disclosure. Bad mistakes - worthy of resignation, but insufficient to bar a return to public life at a later stage.
All the signs are that Mr Blair will keep Mr Mandelson in purdah for a decent interval, and then bring him back into Government - perhaps next summer. There are, moreover, good reasons why he should return. Mr Blair needs him. It's no longer hand-holding. It's more that Mr Mandelson is one of the few genuine, ideological Blairites. His book with Roger Liddle remains, far more than Professor Giddens's treatises on the Third Way, the clearest statement to date of Blairite revisionism couched in terms of Labour Party history. 'In just 18 months you have helped to transform this country,' the Prime Minister wrote to his ousted friend yesterday. That's yet to be proved. He has, however, helped change his party beyond recognition.
Irrevocably? If Tony Blair does have a project for deep transformation of country and political parties he needs effective allies. Mr Mandelson was one. His loss, necessary and exemplary as it is leaves the Prime Minister significantly more politically isolated within his party at a time when his standing within the country is (to tempt fate - something Mr Mandelson will surely never do again) unassailable.
© Copyright Guardian Media Group plc.1998