If the Millibands et. al. think that Mandelson has ruined the reputation of New Labour, then they are utterly deluded
It would be a bit like Gary Glitter worrying that his very good name had been damaged by a story that his hair was really a wig. The remnants of the New Labour elite – now campaigning to take over the leadership – are in a tizz. They are deeply concerned that Peter Mandelson has damaged the party by offering rather a lot of detail on all the infighting that went on. Thus all 5 leadership contenders – along with New Labour’s smelly, unwanted grandfather, Neil Kinnock – have come out to condemn the revelations.
All I can say is that if these individuals are seriously worried about the damage that Mandelson’s soap-opera like revelations will do to the national memory of New Labour, then they are deeply deluded about how the general public perceive their time in office. There are many reasons that are far more serious, and more brutally relevant to people’s daily lives, that cause so many people look back on the last decade with a mixture of bitterness and disappointment. I don’t need to provide a shopping list of New Labour’s failures to make this point. It is sufficient to say that the those office spent 13 years creating a less equal society in very good economic times.
What became very clear to me during the general election campaign was that, despite the widespread portrayal of the demos as stupid and fickle, scandals and personal failings have relatively little impact. The televised discovery that three labour MPs appeared willing to sell their integrity to corporate lobbyists made no discernible impact on the opinion polls.
When the remnants of the New Labour government turn Mandelson into a demonic figure, when the likes of Ed Miliband say that the party needs a “new generation” of leaders who are not, um, Peter Mandelson but were nonetheless faithful servants throughout the New Labour project, they try in vain to run a way from the real political changes that are necessary if Labour is to win back the 1.5 million working class C2 voters who so decisively deserted the party in May.
