What's Cooking, Good Looking? And Peter Mandelson

Dinner tonight, an (almost) vegetarian paella. Nice and spicy! The weather is getting colder and colder (although the UK seems to be filled with a pre-freeze doom and gloom.)

I realised for the first time on my return to the UK what people mean when they talk about how awful British weather is. It's not range in temperatures or the mildness of it all. It's the pervasive damp that gets into your bones, your clothes, into woodwork or on walls. Our island just has a much higher moisture content in comparison to mainland Europe. Outside Ratusz-Arsenał Metro today, with a lusty gale seeking its way into my nether regions, it just didn’t feel as cold. But Poland’s winter has yet to come.

One word of praise to the Indesit hob that is currently doing such sterling work in cooking the paella. I scratched it somehow a couple of weeks ago and panicked a bit as we are only living here temporarily. I was mightily castigated for my stupidity by The Mrs, of course. Fortunately it has somehow self-sealed the scratch and there is not a trace left. Phew! 

Peter Mandelson's interview is out in Total Politics here. As always it's good stuff, although I don't think it's quite as revelatory as Iain Dale suggests. The part I find most fascinating is the section when he says:

What would you have done differently?
Not been so much at the cutting edge of change in the Labour Party. I would have been less outspoken, less forceful. I would have spent much more time in the Parliamentary Labour Party, in the tearoom, in the smoking room, making friends, agreeing with everyone, rather than contesting a lot of their views. You know, the problem is, as I explain candidly in the book, that I not only have very strong views about what the Labour Party had to become and change into to be elected, I was forceful in expressing those views. I didn't really take hostages when people were trying to oppose or derail us. Now, that is not the recipe for a successful political career. Politics requires you to be a bit more amenable, a bit more accommodating, nice to everyone's face, whatever you say behind their back, just altogether more oleaginous. And I didn't do oleaginous. 

I have heard stories of the Peter Mandelson of old and that chimes. I was at the Business Department under John Hutton and then worked for Shriti Vadera when Peter Mandelson joined the Government and became Secretary of State for Business. Over the course of the next two years I saw how Peter M operated on many different occasions. I shall save most of the stories of my time there for the diaries! 

But the Peter Mandelson I knew was so oleaginous he could have easily set up his own one man Pomade company. I mean that as a compliment. He was superb at motivating his troops, knowing exactly when it was important to be seen out and about, raising morale with little one minute stardust sprinkles on visits to different teams, ours included. He valued contributions, incorporated ideas and above all kept a sense of wry good humour about proceedings. It’s amazing how much that can motivate people to go the extra mile for you. Leadership is as much about setting a tone as having vision. I think it says a lot that this management ability didn’t work so effectively (as he admits in the article) in the last Labour election campaign. 

I also saw a ruthless determination, as well. But never when it wasn't needed. Also a key ingredient in power. 

The Labour Party should not forget his abilities now. Casting him into retirement is a waste of his talent and potential contribution.