Mandelson: “I’m a kindly pussycat”

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

Very little can be written about Peter Mandelson that hasn’t already been said, but his interview with Decca Aitkenhead of the Guardian this morning relveals once again this fascinating convergence of contradictions.

At once, Mandelson is dazzling and rude, caring and dismissive, serious and schoolboy, focused and distracted. He’s credible, manipulative, feline, fun, brutal, almost-hammy, suprememly confident and profoundly insecure.

And his self-definition as a “kindly pussycat” is one label, calculated and wily, that may just stick.

Read the full interview here – it’s today’s essential reading.