Mandy’s intervention

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

All the weekend papers have reported on Peter Mandelson’s new book, due out this week – perhaps unsurprisingly considering salivatory promotional ads to sell the thing, like this one for the Times’ serialisation:

I fear the book, for all its potential juicy insights, might shed more heat than light on Labour’s leadership and renewal discussion this close to the breakdown. But with Harriet already scrambling to reassure that the book will not reopen old wounds or distract a “determined party”, and John Prescott reminding us how damaging the old Brown-Blair battle was for Labour on Marr this morning, there’s evidently a little worry floating about within the party hierarchy.

A good time to return, perhaps, to what I wrote in May: that we need a deep clean, and to move beyond – as all the candidates have agreed – the battles of 1997.

“It’s not 1997 anymore; the discussion should no longer be about or merely between Blairites and Brownites; it should be about how Labour can best respond to likely opposition in order to best help all the people it seeks to represent.”