The slime that is Peter Mandelson
Dear Lord Mandelson,
After your meteroic re-rise to the top of the Labour Party, I was hoping that you would have learned the lessons of the past. Apparently not. Despite surviving the expenses scandal relatively unscathed, your reputation for sleaze and corruption remains unshaken as demonstrated by your increasingly dubious behaviour over the past ten days.
Last week, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds. Soon afterwards, reports emerged that you had met Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s son a week before we first learned that the Libyan man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing could be freed. You apparently spoke briefly about the case with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi while on holiday in Corfu, yet your spokesman had the nerve to suggest that the subsequent reports of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi’s possible release from jail were “entirely coincidental”. Totally unmoved by your dubious financial activities in the past on Corfu yachts, you were staying as a guest of the Rothschild family on the Greek island and your stay just happened to coincide with that of Saif Gaddafi, who is seen as the Libyan leader’s most likely successor, by a single night but this was long enough for the two men to discuss the Megrahi case. It is entirely possible that some trade deals might have slipped into the conversation too.
As if one incident of behind-the-scenes lobbying and shadowy deals wasn’t enough, yesterday you were accused of caving into a “big lobbying operation” after ordering a change in policy on internet piracy. You are proposing cutting the broadband connection from users who swap copyrighted content, which has outraged internet providers who said that it would breach fundamental rights and would not work. Even though this proposal was rejected by Lord Carter, the former Digital Britain minister and Downing Street special adviser, a matter of months ago, you have mysteriously changed your mind. Tom Watson, the former Labour minister who I hardly find myself agreeing with on a regular basis, said: “To unravel Stephen Carter’s settlement is a mistake. The proposals pander to rights holders who have failed to find new business models for the digital age.” On his blog, he added that this will “lead to accusations that the Government has been captured by the big lobby operations of powerful rights holders.” Well said that man. Of course, your new policy of disconnecting broadband users has nothing to do with the fact that on 7th August, you dined with David Geffen, the billionaire producer who co-founded the DreamWorks studio with Steven Spielberg, at a villa in Corfu. Mr Geffen was an earlier opponent of MP3 players that allowed illegal downloads. Officials denied that they discussed internet piracy and suggested that the decision to reverse Lord Carter’s findings had been taken in late July. The Business Department was unable to explain the timing so soon after the Digital Britain report, and suggested that Lord Carter had just been “wrong”. The official statement from Stephen Timms, who succeeded Lord Carter as a minister for Digital Britain last month, comes halfway through a consultation on the issue.
The strange thing is that none of this surprises me. In fact, I expected nothing less. Some people seem to have forgotten that you have already been forced to resign not once but twice from the Cabinet for your involvement in dodgy deals, breaking rules and even abusing your Cabinet position. Even when you were at the European Commissioner, you got caught ‘facilitating’ a deal in 2004 which cut raw aluminium tariffs from 6% to 3%, making your friend, the Russion billionare Oleg Deripaska, about £50 million in the process. Controversy, deception and denials are always just a few steps behind you and the fact that someone who has been disgraced time and time again is now the Deputy Prime Minister in all but name is a disgrace to British politics. You may not have been forced to resign over your expenses, but there are a million and one other reasons why you shouldn’t be anywhere near the levers of power.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
“Some people seem to have forgotten that you have already been forced to resign not once but twice from the Cabinet for your involvement in dodgy deals, breaking rules and even abusing your Cabinet position. “
I think it’s incumbent on all bloggers to ensure that as few people are allowed to forget this as possible!
Somehow I knew you’d go on this today LFaT. The man is an absolute and total disgrace, and would bring shame to all in the Labour Party if were capable of feeling shame. Of which there is no evidence.
The corruption is probably the most shocking thing about the Labour Party. The Tories were pathetic at making a fast buck by comparison.
Blacker than black, is the heart of New Labour.
What is the difference between this incident and the Ecclestone affair in 1997 where Bernie Ecclestone made a large donation to the Labour party to secure the continuation of tobacco sponsorship in Formula 1?
Think hard……no, it’s a trick question, there isn’t any.
David Geffen is incredibly rich. But Labour has been about such deals right from the word go. ‘Whiter than White’ said the vicar through gritted teeth and a fake smile.
At every step, this government has been touched by sleaze. Blunkett, Blair, Mandleson, Blears, the list is endless and goes right to the top of goverment. Every trick, every smear, every self serving enrichment scheme.
If this had been a Tory government I cannot believe that prison sentences would have been forthcoming, and certainly the press would have hounded them from office. And that’s before we even think about Dr David Kelly.
I just hope the population understands exactly what is at stake at the next election, because if they are stupid enough to vote Labour again, then they deserve the kleptocracy they will get.
Given the popularity of piracy, and the fact so many businesses do it – your usual IT start-up will be riven with pirated software until the money starts coming in, where it then starts gets replaced with legal software – means this’ll be a vote-loser.
Moreover, technology will just make it harder. We already have Peer Guardian, TOR and darknets. You can FTP to a server in another country and download from there. Just as the destruction of Napster led to a proliferation of P2P sites and the popularity of bittorrent, this will lead to something new as well.
It’ll also lose Labour lots of votes. People, rightly or wrongly, are now used to getting copyrighted content free from the internet – a situation almost entirely the fault of the media industries – and they will spit their dummy out over this.
Something needs to be done, but draconian rules won’t work – not against a world of coders who like a challenge, and a population who wants free stuff.
Fondlebum just lost labour the entire internet youth vote.
Lord Mandelson is the ablest member of the cabinet by far, including the PM.
That just demonstrates how low the bar has been set.
The fact this man has such clout in British government is an absolute atrocity, both constitutionally and ethically. A peer, no matter who he is and regardless of his talent, in my opinion, must not hold positions in the Cabinet.
His political abilities are not in doubt, but it is as a result of Mandy’s standing in this country we are subjected to his lobby-appeasing nonsense. The only conceivable ways forward are to slash the number of Cabinet posts, and to legislate that unelected Peers cannot hold governmental positions. We already have an unelected and partisan Civil Service to tell us what to do which in itself is an affront to this country’s democratic traditions, the idea of this shifty rat, and his upper house colleagues doing the same drives me up the wall.
Will the tories address this? I don’t think I’ll bother holding my breath.
GrassyKnollington
- hard cases make bad laws. Mandelson is a disgrace, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a role for unelected peers. Lord Young of Graffam, for instance, made many valuable Cabinet level contributions as did Lord Hailsham.
Of course, like everything in our constitution it should be used in moderation and our present government seems all to happy to abuse the flexibility the constitution offers in this as well as other aspects
@Obsidian – from your 2nd paragraph onwards you nicked my post but expressed it more eloquently.
A snake and no mistake.
It says a lot about the person that put such an evidently corrupt individual into such a position of authority (and the party that supports such a decision).
He tars them all with his stink of corruption. Sad thing is, they don’t even notice the smell.
I wonder if Geffen gave Mandy a bribe? If after the election he’s offered a tasty non-executive directorship in the music industry — 50 grand a year of a day’s work a month, nice work if you can get it — we’ll know why.
“He tars them all with his stink of corruption. Sad thing is, they don’t even notice the smell. “
When you are standing in a sty, you aren’t likely to notice if the farmer lets another pig in, are you?
Yes Mandy is an utter slimeball, but what of the man who cynically brought him back into government? Gordon Brown, a man without any principles. A man who will do anything to remain in power, even to bringing back and enobling this rotter. Then to add insult to injury he does the same to that talentless bully, Alan Sugar. Moral compass, my a**e!
Brilliantly well said that man!
Applause!!!!!!!
” Moral compass, my a**e!”
Could it have been lost in translation? I mean, with the (curiously deleted yet hinted at in cache) ‘rocking horse’ rumours in mind, could he have meant “Mmmm…. oral my arse, Darling”?
Or did I live in Brighton for too long?
I think the comments above cover the situation nicely. There’s nothing to add.
I´m guessing it´s explains this :
Lord Mandelson pays off his £750,000 mortgage within a year
THE REASON THE MAN HAS SUCH UNELLECTED POWER IS SPINELESS COWERED GOVERNMENT BACKBENCH.AIDED AND ABBETTED BY A DO NOT FRIGHTEN THE HORSES OPOSITION.
I agree with every word of this post. ‘Lord’ Putrid is the most repulsive slimeball that Labour has ever produced. The fact that this unelected and unelectable creep is effectively Deputy PM is a national disgrace.
So, LFAT, you may embrace Straw’s move to quarantine Mandy, er I mean Lords who want to house jump. If the Ministry of Justice says its ok, its ok by me!!
[...] To repeat that oft used phrase it is not often I agree with Letters from a Tory today reading his letter to Peter Mandelson made me smile in [...]
Being a member of the GENERAL PUBLIC, gentlemen. I can only assume that Mandy, has powers that somehow diminish your very own! We expect, forthright, courageous and honest ministers! Who stand up for what they believe in and who put the public’s position above all else! (For the general good of man, women and child).
Have you forgotten your envious position? “You cannot be sacked!”
Stand in front of the media and allow the “beans to be spread!” Mandy’s, a millionaire now! (for leaving the E.U commission). So hopefully, once the sociopath leaves office, he will be able to grace Corfu, more frequent!
His ability to lie bear-faced in-front of the media reminds me of passages form ‘The Prince’. 80% of the company I work for has a workforce that is from outside the EU. Mandy, claimed on TV, that no jobs have been taken away from British subjects! Utter rubbish! I know many young people who cannot get a job as a result!