Mandelson: Osborne’s “positioning is an audacious attempt at political cross-dressing”

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

Back from his holiday in Corfu, Peter Mandelson is again ubiquitous, and has attacked George’s Osborne’s “progressive conservativism” speech yesterday as “audacious political cross-dressing” in this morning’s Guardian.

Mandelson says that Osborne “doesn’t believe in the necessity and value of social justice”, or in “making a better society by acting together.”

He writes:

“After a decade of New Labour government Britain has better health and childcare, better education, better help for the unemployed, greater investment in science, better workplace rights and greater devolution of government than it did after 18 years of Tory rule. These things didn’t happen by accident. It is no wonder that David Cameron is desperate to convince voters that this progressive legacy would be safe in Tory hands. But Osborne simply defines progressive to mean whatever the Tories believe this month.”

“If Osborne is serious about making a bid for progressive credentials, why are the Tories so coy about their policies on education, healthcare, minority rights, workplace rights and Britain’s place in – or out of – Europe? How progressive is a policy on inheritance tax that would favour the very wealthy with a substantial tax cut? Why does he have so little to say about social mobility? From the benches of the European parliament, where the Tories sit alongside a motley collection of far rightists, nationalists and homophobes, their claim to carry the torch of progressive politics looks like a bad joke.”

Mandelson has also just appeared on Radio 5, where he talked lucidly about the economy. Answering a question about how perceptions of the recession would impact the next general election, he said:

“Any level of unemployment is unacceptable. What would be the level of unemployment if we hadn’t interevened? There would be at least 500,000 more unemployed…last year, 225,000 started on apprenticeships, compared with 65,000 in 1996-97. 65% of people are now completing those apprenticeships…in most of those cases the Conservatives wouldn’t have taken action and unemployment would have been much higher…so there’s a choice to be made.”

The First Secretary is very good when he’s on this sort of form, when he is able to speak with slow and measured clarity and conviction.

Indeed, his confidence speaking about the economy was noticeably different from his more hesitant answer to the question of whether the Prime Minister should be away on holiday on the day the latest unemployment figures are announced – not quite so fluent.