If you didn't hear Lord Mandelson speak at a progress event in Portcullis House this evening, you missed a corker.

Although it was relatively subdued affair, the former business secretary delivered a measured warning to those at the top of the Labour Party: “be more interesting”.

Dubbed an ‘in conversation’ with the Independent on Sunday’s John Rentoul, Mandelson called on the “new generation” to “reinvent New labour for a new decade”.

“We have to sound and look like a genuinely national party drawn from every region and social background and not just ex-political assistants, researchers and trade union aparatchiks recruited from inside the Westminster bubble,” he said as part of his opening statement.

His vision includes primaries, ending "in-fighting" and looking at membership drives. And he suggested that the party needs to “revolutionise” its funding sources.

“This is not a coded attack on the trade unions,” he said. “The truth is without them we would not exist.  But we cannot let this situation persist. We have to develop smarter ways of raising money. We have to combine the latest technical solutions with community engagement to open up new sources of cash.”

Answering audience questions later in the evening, Mandelson suggested that Labour needs to be “a darn sight more interesting in what we say and more colourful in positions we take” if the party is going to cut through in opposition.

The former business secretary continued: “If we sound predictable, dull or monotone, can we be surprised that people stop listening to us or the media stops reporting us?

"If I was to give any advice to the shadow cabinet… [it would be] please be more interesting… A little bit more risk-taking… a little less parochial.

"We appear almost too practical, too afraid that if we say something, we will trigger a reaction… We have to be a little bit more technicolour in what we say and do.

He added: “I will do virtually anything, within reason, to return a Labour government... The country has moved on. So must we.”

He stressed his support for Ed Miliband - "no ifs and buts". 

But I wonder if Ed Miliband will see Mandelson's words in such a supportive light...
 

Tags: Labour Party, Lord Mandelson, Peter Mandelson, Progress