It was Mandy wot lost it

It’s time to drop the myth of Lord Mandelson as a political genius, says Stephen Pollard. No one has done more to wreck the Labour party

Whatever the election result, one thing is sure: industrial quantities of obloquy will be heaped on Gordon Brown as the man responsible for Labour’s result. But if the party is after the real villain of the piece, it is looking in the wrong place.

Mr Brown was, it was clear from the start, never suitable for the job of Prime Minister. By last summer, such a conclusion was not merely clear, it was being beamed in blinding neon lighting from the door of 10 Downing Street. So long as Gordon Brown remained leader, Labour was guaranteed defeat.

By ensuring Mr Brown’s survival as leader, one man was responsible for that delivering on that guarantee: Lord Mandelson. Tony Blair famously remarked that his project would have succeeded ‘when the Labour party learns to love Peter Mandelson’.