This sea of troubles is one that Mandy whipped up for himself

Roy Greenslade
29 Oct 2008

Peter Mandelson should be grateful for Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross. Their misguided prank turned the media spotlight on to the BBC at the very moment he was, quite rightly, facing the fiercest press examinations of his own behaviour.

After days of front-page coverage, the stories raising important questions about Mandelson's links to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska have moved inside a few pages. But they will return.

The new Lord Mandelson is a lightning rod for controversy a dream come true for journalists. He is a walking, talking, living news story.

Which is why it was such a huge error by Gordon Brown to bring him back as Secretary of State for Business. Whatever positive qualities he may bring to the job, they are hopelessly outweighed by the negative ones.

Rather than helping to get Brown elected, he will inevitably help him on his way to defeat. The great manipulator is way past his sell-by date, though tucked away in Brussels as a European Union commissioner the British press largely left him alone.

Not long after he returned, we discovered that the Prime Minister's old enemy had been badmouthing him a few weeks earlier. The leak came from the Tory Shadow Chancellor George Osborne. Mandelson's revenge was to seek to deflect criticism of his own actions by allowing Osborne to be smeared. For a couple of days, Osborne was the story. But soon Mandelson was back in the headlines.

He had allowed us to believe his first contact with the billionaire was in 2006. Then it emerged he had dined with Deripaska in October 2004, but he has refused to clarify how many times they have met or reveal what they discussed.

That stonewalling reminded me of his first resignation in 1998. He had not thought it necessary to tell anyone, including Tony Blair, about borrowing £373,000 from another member of the Government, Geoffrey Robinson, to buy a desirable residence in Notting Hill.

Facts have to be squeezed from Mandelson. Back in government by 2001, he was finally forced to admit he had phoned another minister about an Indian businessman, Srichand Hinduja, who just happened to be seeking UK citizenship, and whose family firm later became a main sponsor of a zone in the controversial Millennium Dome.

As he resigned for the second time, he maintained: "I have done nothing wrong."

Whether he had or had not (he was cleared of any wrongdoing by an inquiry), few if any journalists believe him even when he is telling the truth. This may well strike some people as unfair, but it has come about because of Mandelson's own attitude and actions towards journalists.

He has smooched them, cajoled them and, in certain instances, gone behind their backs to complain to their editors and/or owners. Virtually every political journalist has a tale about what they see as Mandelsonian duplicity.

So, in complaining that journalists are out to get him, he may well be right. But he has spent years giving them endless reasons to do so. For a man routinely regarded as being media-savvy he has always exhibited unbelievable naivety.

In casting himself as the quintessential media manager he has wildly overplayed his hand. Any politician who boasts about controlling the news agenda is bound to become a centre of journalistic attention.

He is like a puppeteer who openly shows us the string-pulling. We may admire the skill involved but it loses its impact once we can see how it is done. The éminence grise is not so effective once he appears on centre stage. That is why Mandelson is, in political terms, a busted flush.

Let me also dismiss any suggestion that criticism of Mandelson springs from either homophobia or anti-Semitism. Both are wide of the mark. He has brought this campaign of vilification on himself.

It is impossible to think of any newspaper that has supported him, not even the Labour-leaning Mirror or Guardian. For a former spin doctor that is some achievement.

On the day news broke of Mandelson's appointment by Brown, I told a Labour friend it would all end in tears. I can already see eyes watering in No.10.