LabourList this morning published exclusive extracts from Lord Mandelson's paperback version of The Third Man.
The new chapter includes some tasty little morsels.
Notable is his verdict on Ed Miliband's inability to articulate a credible alternative to New Labour at the beginning of his time as leader:
Even allowing for the tactical choices he had made in his bid to become leader, however, I was struck by the fact that he had given no strong clue during the campaign as to what alternative to New Labour he envisaged… I would sum up his position as being an egalitarian social liberal – different from Tony, yet not a reversion to Old Labour.
Another quote that really stands out is his opinion on Neil Kinnock:
It was left to Neil Kinnock, who had always found it hard to celebrate New Labour’s successes, to drive home this message. With their new leader’s triumph, he crowed, Labour’s old faithful had finally ‘got their party back’. If by that he meant our 1980s party, God only knew how, or when, we could hope to become a party of government again.
Mandelson is also more positive about Ed Miliband than in our interview with Iain Dale (you can read the TP interview here):
Ed’s victory may have been wafer-thin, but he had played by the rules – even if the rules had ended up giving the deciding voice to union organisers, many of whose rank and file were not Labour Party members. And he had won. For lifetime Labour loyalists like me, that was all that mattered. Ed was our leader. He was my leader. I would do all I could to help make his leadership a success.
Read the full exclusive extracts at LabourList.
Other exclusive extracts from the chapter can be found on Labour Uncut.
Read Iain Dale's interview with Lord Mandelson here.
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