Quite a few years ago I published Peter Mandelson’s book The Blair Revolution Revisited. At that point he was between jobs, having resigned for the second time from the Blair government. He was a fish looking for water. What impressed me about him then was his complete understanding of what was expected of him as an author. I thought he was a class act then, and I still do.

Ever since then I remained in email contact with him, as I had his private email address. From time to time we’d exchange pleasantries, but one thing I noted was that each time I sent him an email he would reply within minutes. Andrew Neil is another one with the same admirable habit. But our paths didn’t cross again in person until the autumn of 2008, shortly after his surprise return to the cabinet for his third incarnation.

I was in the House of Commons walking up the wide staircase to the committee room corridor when I spied Peter Mandelson coming the other way. I didn’t expect him to remember me, so I affected not to notice him. But he immediately stopped and said hello. “How’s the blog doing,” he asked. “All the better when you feature,” I responded. “As it should be, Iain, as it should be...” And he then glided away. It was a typical Mandelsonian performance. Right, I thought. I’m going to get an interview with you if it’s the last thing I do. And two years later, I eventually succeeded.

There’s no doubt about it, as you will shortly read, Peter Mandelson gives good interview. I haven’t quite worked out yet if he realises what he is saying or whether he does it deliberately, but there were more stories to come out of this interview than any other I have ever done. I don’t think Peter Mandelson has ever knowingly given an uncontroversial interview in his life. And long may it remain so.

ID: What was your experience of writing your book The Third Man?.

PM: The book has been in the process of being written and produced over many years. It didn't start after the election, nor was I writing it during the election campaign at all. It had two false starts when I embarked on it but something happened to divert me, either to Brussels or back to government here. But the construction of it, the conception of it, took place over many years and I worked on it on long intercontinental flights. I researched it. I had somebody go through 36 box files of papers. I worked out what I wanted to say and then the real intensive writing and production of it came after the election. I went off and hid with two of my closest advisors and two people from HarperCollins who were absolutely indispensible. It's not something I could go through again in a hurry.

It was interesting because it was kept quite a good secret until very shortly before publication. Was that planned?

The reason for that was that I wasn't sure that I could do it. I didn't sign the contract with HarperCollins until end of May, beginning of June. It was published in the middle of July. And the reason for that was I just did not know physically whether I could pull it off in the timescale, and I didn't want to announce that I was doing it, wind everyone up, send all the alarm bells clanging and then suddenly it didn't appear.

Why the rush? To beat Tony Blair?

Because I wanted to move on in my life. And I did not want to have such a book come out at the end of this year or beginning of next, when the Labour Party wants to move on. And I wanted to move on too. I wanted to draw a line. But these things have to capture a moment and I felt the moment was then, as did the publishers.

Well I think the fact that it was number one in the bestseller charts has proved you right on that.

Well it was number one for five or six weeks.

Were you expecting that?

No. I was told that a political biography or ministerial memoir doesn't sell anymore. If you're not Thatcher, Major or Blair, and they had their own particular market, you would be lucky if you sold more than forty or fifty thousand.

Most politicians are lucky if they sell more than five thousand nowadays.

But that was forty or fifty thousand if it was a real cracking read and the timing was right. And it was honest. It was an authentic thing and I didn't want to do a sort of Michael Heseltine or Norman Fowler-type memoir in which I told everyone which committees I attended, where I made my speeches. No. It would have been ridiculous for me to do that and it wouldn't have been published, it wouldn't have sold, it would have reflected poorly on me. But there were a whole series of difficult judgement calls about what to include. In the end I decided that I couldn't tell the real story unless I told the whole story, broadly speaking. I couldn't leave certain events or exchanges or episodes out because I wouldn't be able to explain what happened later. So, having approached it in the first place in a rather sort of cautious, judicious, discreet way, I found that I had to put in more than I originally intended because that was the only way to tell the story and to have it make sense for people. But not in a nasty way, and I think that people reading it will feel that it's balanced, it's rounded. It is honest about people, but it's not nasty about people and the only thing that I regretted about some of the newspaper coverage of it was that the book was presented as me settling scores or getting my own back on people, and that was simply not how I felt, not how I wrote it, but I guess that's the only way in which newspapers know how to write stories about such books.

I said in the review I wrote: “He's painfully honest about his relationship with Gordon Brown and completely up front about his political and personal weaknesses - almost completely. Yet in the chapters on his return to government you sense that he would like to say more, but he doesn't want to hurt his old political friend (and foe) anymore than he has to”. I can hear his editor saying, “but Peter, we need just a little bit more here”, on more than one occasion, but I don't blame him for not complying.

That is absolutely right. There was an editor who will remain nameless...

...Well I know because I've done it myself...

...who said, you know, “I think you've got to be more explicit here. I think you've got to lay it out more fully. I think you've got to be tougher here”. And I said “I will be tough in my own way”. People will know what I'm saying without me laying into an individual and even now, with the documentary that was premiered on Sunday, some of the newspaper reporting has me being nasty or catty or bitchy about Gordon. That's their take on it. If you look at how I talk about Gordon it's with affection. When I talk about him being a combination of a snowplough and a combine harvester, that's a compliment. I mean Gordon had, as I described in the book, a certain force majeure. A determination not to allow anything or anyone to stand in his way when he was doing what he thought was right. Now that's a vital ingredient that I believe a prime minister needs. In some respects, I wish Tony had had more of the force majeure. Similarly, I wished Gordon had had a little bit more of Tony's sort of feline charm.

Do you think if you actually combined Gordon Brown and Tony Blair into one politician you'd almost have the perfect politician?

Yes, and I nearly said it in the book. Did I say that in the book?

I don't know.

I can't remember, but I nearly said it in the book and I was told that it would sound just a bit clichéd. But if you had Gordon's intellect, his grasp of the big picture, that sort of forcefulness that a prime minister needs, you know, a determination not to let anything get in his way, plus Tony's charm and tact and communication skills and ability to pull together a team and the leadership skills he had, you would, I think, have the perfect prime minister.

Do you think you overplayed your own role at all in the book because obviously in any autobiography it is the chance to...

...difficult not to in an autobiography...

Indeed, and that's kind of my point. The title, The Third Man, almost says it all. You considered yourself the third piece of the jigsaw in the creation of New Labour.

That's how we started out in the '80s. People could be forgiven for thinking only of the present, but this is a relationship that has gone on, stretches back, over 20 years and more. It's difficult. On the one hand what's the point of writing a book like this without casting yourself in a fairly central role, but without appearing vain? On the other hand, I was very clear about how when I left government, I was operating in the shadows. I wasn't a front rank minister. I wasn't able to influence vital decisions like that over Iraq for example.

But that's the running theme through the book. There was a growing frustration, particularly in the run-up to '97, that you were always operating in the shadows.

It was convenient for Tony but damaging for me. But you can only understand me, and what happened to me, by realising how difficult a role it was. Tony was very conflicted on this. On the one hand he regarded me as a good minister - somebody who could take on a department and a portfolio and deliver. On the other hand, he was affected by people whispering in his ear, and saying, "Peter's too controversial", or "Peter attracts too much media attention", or "Peter's too manipulative", or "Peter's a problem between you and Gordon", and he had a lot of that going on in his own circle. None of it designed to help me. And I had to cope with that, whilst at the same time facing Gordon's hostility from outside the Blair circle. So I got it from both directions, both within the circle and outside it.

Going through the book, it's fascinating to see the development of your relationship with Alastair Campbell. Having read his diaries as well it’s clear you're quite good friends and yet you can have blazing rows. You'll then go round to his house that evening and have a perfectly amicable dinner with him and Fiona.

Well I've known him for such a long time. As I describe in the book, I knew Fiona, his partner, first and her parents and the Labour Party circle in Marylebone. I remember when Alastair first appeared with Fiona. In the 1980s I looked to Alastair as a real help and support when I started to work in Walworth Road in 1985. He was always there, with his advice or ability to rewrite things, or to ghost write articles, or name party policy documents. But when he came to work with Tony in 1994, the other side of Alastair came out. Very competitive, rather domineering, and a huge but fragile ego. It wasn't easy.

He might say the same about you.

He might do. Accept that what I was trying to do was to get out from my role as Blair's spin doctor. What I wanted to do was to be a Labour Member of Parliament and would-be minister. I didn't like Tony constantly sort of using me as a sounding board, as an advisor or concierge when it undermined my independence in the political career that I was trying to construct for myself. But I couldn't do anything about that because of the roots of our relationship in the 1980s and the fact that the three of us and then, after 1994, the two of us, looked to each other as friends, as allies, as constant supports.

What I think people outside politics don't get is that every political leader, particularly the party leader or prime minster, has to have someone in that role, who they can trust 100 per cent, who they can bounce things off. It's like Margaret Thatcher said "every prime minister needs a Willie". Well Tony Blair could have equally said "every prime minister needs a Peter".

Yes. But I was completely un-self-interested and that's what I think what some people didn't realise at the time. I was working for the success of Tony Blair because I believed we'd only be elected as New Labour and that we had to govern as New Labour as well. It was the Party's success that mattered to me more than my personal ambition. If I had put myself first I would have done things quite differently. Quite differently.

What would you have done differently?

Not been so much at the cutting edge of change in the Labour Party. I would have been less outspoken, less forceful. I would have spent much more time in the Parliamentary Labour Party, in the tearoom, in the smoking room, making friends, agreeing with everyone, rather than contesting...

...You're almost describing Ed Miliband...

...contesting a lot of their views. You know, the problem is, as I explain candidly in the book, that I not only have very strong views about what the Labour Party had to become and change into to be elected, I was forceful in expressing those views and I didn't really take hostages when people were trying to oppose or derail us. Now, that is not the recipe for a successful political career. Politics requires you to be a bit more amenable, a bit more accommodating, nice to everyone's face, whatever you say behind their back, just altogether more oleaginous. And I didn't do oleaginous.

But I would say that when you came back in 2008 we saw a different Peter Mandelson from the Peter Mandelson that we'd seen before. The general public saw it, and maybe your colleagues as well.

My colleagues as well, very importantly. I mean I came back as a sort of elder statesman. Somebody who had gained considerable experience and status as a European Commissioner. I returned as a fireman, as a safe pair of hands to help the government and the party in what was a crisis. And I want to continue as a trusted and respected grandee or great uncle. What's happened since the election is that we've all made up now. I felt hurt, I felt denigrated by some of Ed Miliband's remarks. I mean talking about me in terms of "dignity in retirement", I felt as if I was being unfairly treated and packed off rather prematurely to an old folk's home. I also thought to define himself against New Labour, as opposed to being a development of New Labour, was electorally unwise. But again, we've all moved on. What I've got to do now is remain a candid friend but also constructive and always loyal. I was always loyal.

I started at the beginning of my career, my full time career in politics, as very loyal to Neil Kinnock, even though I didn't agree with everything he was saying and doing, but I nonetheless thought he was tremendously courageous and bold in the leadership he gave to the party. I ended up equally as loyal to Gordon Brown who I didn't agree with entirely either and I will be loyal to Ed Miliband because that's how I am. I don't want to become a sort of irritant or a backseat driver. I want to continue as I began when I returned in 2008.

But if you had been advising Ed Miliband on his campaign, you can see, and I don't know whether you would have done this or not, but the fact is, he knew his electorate. He wasn't playing to the country, he was playing to the people who were voting for him. And he was very successful in doing that.

Well, he has a very strong character and personality, as his brother discovered. He has strong personal qualities and something that people don't realise is that when I came back in 2008, the colleague with whom I spent most time in the Cabinet was Ed Miliband. Partly because he was a neighbour in North London and partly because he went out of his way to befriend me. He really wanted to bury the hatchet and to put all that he did for Gordon against Tony and all that he did amongst the Brownites against the Blairites behind him.

People tend to forget him in that. Everyone thinks it was all Ed Balls.

He played his part, but he also wanted to put it behind him, and by befriending me and by spending so much time with me, I think he succeeded in doing that. I didn't realise he had such strong leadership ambition. For me, the sort of default candidate and next leader was David. To be honest I didn't really think that seriously about Ed as a would-be leader, and I missed that. And as I said I spent much more time with Ed, and Ed was going out of his way to be more friendly towards me when I came back in 2008 than David did. But that again I think shows some of Ed's cleverness.

Or deviousness. But it's interesting that you didn't identify him as a leader. Do you think he actually has what it takes to be a leader?

Well I think the fact that he came forward and challenged his brother, and conducted such a strong campaign, shows that he does have what is needed in politics to be the number one person. I mean, the one piece of advice I gave at the beginning of the leadership contest, was that he shouldn't say anything to win the vote of the party that might make it subsequently more difficult to win the votes of the country.

But he ignored that advice didn't he?

He ignored that advice but he's made up for it since.

But Iain Duncan Smith, and he ought to know, said that a new leader has got 90 days to define themselves. Now that was back in 2003, today you’ve probably got less than 90 days...

That was the example of Tony. When Tony was elected in '94, he did some things on policy, on education, on family and a number of other areas, not the least of which was Clause Four, which were breathtaking.

But Ed has had a month in the post. Now ok you can't rush your judgement after a month. He's been ruthless with one or two things in appointing his team, getting rid of Nick Brown for example, he put in a reasonable performance in his first outing at PMQs, but the second one was a disaster. Appointing Alan Johnson, most people think is a bit of an odd thing to do. What else has he done in his first 30 days?

I think appointing Alan was smart because what Ed has done is construct an economically sensible third way on the deficit. He's avoided both extremes.

But you've been criticising him for the deficit strategy, according to the Daily Mail today. It says here, "praising the coalition for tackling the deficit head on".

No, no, no, I'm sorry Iain. I was very clear in what I said. I said, in terms that he has been economically sensible in avoiding both extremes — the deficit deniers on the one hand, and those who are only focused on the deficit and are conducting policy like one club, on the other. Couldn't be clearer. And what I said about the coalition... This is the Daily Mail for goodness sake. What am I doing commenting on something in the Daily Mail? What I said about the coalition is that of course they were confronting issues, very very difficult public spending issues which we would have had to confront if we had been re-elected, even if some of our judgements about specific cuts, their scale and their timing would have been different.

But doesn't this...

We fought the election, Iain, committed to halving the deficit in four years.

Well to my mind you fought the election on virtually identical policies to what the coalition are carrying out anyway...

And what Ed has done very wisely is stick to Alistair Darling's approach, and that's what I congratulated him on, on his approach.

But in a way you could say that George Osborne isn't doing it that much different, he's doing it slightly more, slightly quicker but it's only slightly.

Well I think he would take issue with that. He's made a virtue of going hell for leather.

No, but the PR and the reality are rather different things, and if you look at what he's doing it's five per cent more over one year fewer. Now, most people would describe that as a minor difference.

I'm sorry I don't know whether it's five per cent more, I don't know what you've based that on and it's not a figure I accept because I haven't worked it out for myself.

He's trying to say it's actually one per cent less, that thing that he came out with at the end of the Comprehensive Spending Review statement was actually classic Gordon Brown wasn't it - pull a rabbit out of the hat right at the end to keep your backbenchers happy.

This is game play by the government. They can't have it both ways.

Isn't the reporting of what you said in this Mail article illustrative of the fact that you have to be so careful? Anything you say will be misinterpreted - either your motives or your words. You’re one of the few people in politics who is listened to. Everything you say people are interested in, and I wrote a couple of months ago that I thought that you've got similarities to Norman Tebbit in this in that you both have an ability to get media coverage when you don’t need to.

And that's why I have to use my interventions sparingly and judiciously. And I will. Look, I want to offer counsel to the new generation of Labour leaders and activists. I want to pass on my experience and my wisdom — not to interfere, not to try to rock the boat or drive the car from the backseat. That's why I say that having come back as a safe pair of hands I want to continue as such. It won't stop me being candid in how I engage in Labour Party debates. But when you're in a position like mine you have to weigh your words. I want to be trusted and respected for what I am and what I say, not regarded as somebody who just can't bear to move on.

But isn't the key there "trusted and respected by whom"? Your former, current, Labour colleagues or the political classes generally?

By the new generation of Labour leaders and activists. I'm not going to say things I don't agree with. Take another example from yesterday. When I was being interviewed at lunchtime, somebody asked me if I agreed with David Cameron's 'big society' idea. I said look back to the Progress lecture that I delivered in September 2009 and you will see the argument I made then that we have to maintain the quality and performance of our public services within new spending constraints. That their productivity, their efficiency, their accountability, tailoring them to the needs of individuals now had to be achieved not by simply spending more money on these services but by reforming them. And the last thing I said was that you will find many of the ways in which we seek to change public services coming from within the communities and the people who depend on these public services. And that requires, I said in September 2009, a new path between those who deliver public services and those who use them, and depend on them.

I said that long before David Cameron came up with his big society concept. The way that was reported in one newspaper was "Peter Mandelson praises David Cameron" but that's politics. That's creating a story but I think I can live with that. I think it is better than being ignored altogether.

I guess the difference is if you're a Norman Tebbit or a Simon Hughes you can say a lot in public but have absolutely zero influence. Norman Tebbit has no influence over the Conservative Party. Simon Hughes does with a section of the Liberal Democrats, but not beyond that section.

But that's the difference here. I know that I have to be trusted and respected to have influence. And it is an influence. It's not a control, it's not a power. You know, I will move on and do other things in my life.

Have you decided what?

I'm not quite sure what, but amongst other things I have to earn a living. I don't have an income any more.

I've always imagined that you might well become chairman of some big company, but would that excite you as much as politics does?

Have you seen the Hannah documentary?

No.

You need to see it, because you can see the sort of pressure I was operating under in the last two years as a minister in my department or the industrial policies and the interventions that I was trying to make — the time I spent in Number 10. What I was trying to do was support Gordon and help to manage different aspects of our communications and then our election campaign itself. And I hear myself saying in that documentary "how will I ever live without that pressure?"

Is it a constant adrenaline rush?

Well I'm not sure that rush is the word. It's more like an ever-flowing river. And I will find it difficult.

Have you found it difficult in the last six months?

Yes, I have, the truth is... Look, I know I should say to you that I've adjusted, I've moved on, I'm happy, I'm looking to the future with confidence. But the truth is that I feel a sense of bereavement for our government. Personally I feel like a rather displaced individual and I'm not coping perfectly. But my word, I would have been in a much, much worse position if I hadn't written a book and had that to talk about and present and do events about. It is a bit of therapy, but I also thought that it was an interesting story and a historical account that needed to be given. I had not just a ring-side seat but I was in the ring for a lot of the time and if you're going to do the sort of book I've published on somebody like me, without being vain about it, I think that politics and how we've seen how we can understand the past and see the future would have been the poorer.

You use the phrase called "in the ring" - I don't know if you've ever read a book by Richard Nixon called In The Arena but this book explains how you do actually have to be in the arena to actually achieve anything. You can't just stand on the sidelines and commentate, like I do, you have to actually sort of be there. But can you get that back?

You have to be a Member of Parliament. In reality in the House of Commons rather than the Lords. That is the essential platform and qualification for anyone who wants to be influential in British politics.

Is that true nowadays, in this media age? Do you think that you actually have to be?

Governments are drawn from parliament. The executive is made up of members, chiefly of the Commons but in some cases of the Lords. You don't have a system as in the United States or almost all the European countries where you can be brought into a government because of your personal qualities or your knowledge. We don't have that system in this country.

Gordon Brown did bring some people in, but it didn't really work, did it?

I think it certainly did work. It worked in the case...

Well it did in Ali Darzi's case but the others didn't last very long.

Absolutely wrong, I totally disagree with that. It worked in Darzi's case, Alan West's case, Mark Malloch Brown...

Well it didn't work in his case...

No it actually did work. I actually think that Mark actually had bigger potential and could have been used more.

They all buggered off after a year...

But in my case, in the case of my department both Shriti Vadera and Mervyn Davis made really important policy contributions.

I would loved to have been a fly on the wall in meetings with you and Shriti...

We got on well.

Really? She has a certain reputation

She certainly does. And it is well deserved. I respected her and she respected me.

Have you ruled out a fourth comeback in terms of being in the frontline of things in politics?

I tend not to rule out anything in politics, given my rollercoaster career.

Would you predict anything?

I don't think so. But I'm not going to sit by the telephone. I'm not going to hang around in expectation or with some sort of entitlement. I will find other things to do in my life. Things that I enjoy, things which I think are stimulating or important but also enable me to earn a living. If you were to ask me though, whether fundamentally I'd rather be in public service or the private sector... I'm a public service man. I was brought up in that way and that set of values and motives will never leave me.

If there was a vacancy, would you be interested in the job of EU Higher Representative? Would you consider it?

I wanted to do the job. I couldn't because I was a member of the government who had been called back. To be called back and then to leave a year early would have been impossible. I'm honest about what I say about it in my book. I think in the circumstances, with David Miliband not taking it, we would have been better to have an economic portfolio on the commission. But I don't expect it to become vacant so it's a hypothetical question which is left hanging in the air.

Let's talk about the election. There was a time when a lot of people in the Conservative Party feared that you might have pulled it off.

Iain, we didn't nearly pull it off. We got the worst result in electoral share.

But there was a time at the beginning of the year when it looked as if it could be possible, the Tories were really in the doldrums. The polls were tightening, and a lot of us thought at the time that it could happen.

First of all, the Tories were never "in the doldrums". Secondly, they were making the mistakes that arrogant people often make in politics. They just thought they had to sit tight and allow their opponents to lose the election. When the spotlight fell on them people found them wanting. There wasn't enough there, there wasn't enough substance, there wasn't enough policy, too few ideas, but also people felt that for all his brave words David Cameron had not actually changed, let alone transformed the Conservative Party and they didn't want the old Conservative Party back.

I believe that we could have taken advantage of that if we had had a more credible and acceptable position on the deficit. Gordon got the economics broadly right in the financial crisis but I think he got some of the politics wrong. He seemed to be the guy who was good for the war but not so good for the peace. I said to him on one occasion — you're likely to become the Churchill of this. The guy whose strengths the public recognised in fighting the crisis but they didn't think was the right person for the next leap forward.

I bet that went down well...

You don't understand the relationship I had with Gordon. I can say these things to Gordon. You don't have to sound nasty or spiteful when you say these things. You can have a perfectly good conservation with somebody who you've known for 25 or 30 years.

But I don't think anybody understands your relationship with Gordon Brown...

They understand it a darn sight better having read my book.

But when you read in your book, and indeed Alastair's book, the things that went on between ‘94 and your second resignation, you clearly thought the man wasn't fit for the job and you advised Tony Blair to get rid of him at one point.

I didn't advise him to get rid of him. I advised him to reshuffle him.

You know what I mean.

No I don't know what you mean, could you please be a little bit more specific.

In Alastair's book, and I thought in yours, but I might be wrong...

Alastair's is not a book, it's a diary. And what you are reading is night after night, the world according to Alastair's mind and head as it was then. Mine is a more reflective and analytical book. Drawing on my experiences and what happened, yes, but I hope giving a balanced account and that's why I include in the book Gordon's own words on how he saw the situation, why he found it so frustrating, why it was driving him so mad. Just as it was totally aggravating for Tony as well. You see it from both sides.

You do, I accept that. But there are so many instances which you catalogue, and so does Alasdair and you don't really disagree on them.

But they happened.

The interesting thing about both your books is they're from the same hymnsheet. Often two people can attend the same meeting and they have entirely different recollections. That hasn't happened here.

It was quite clear what had happened. It was also clear what Tony was doing during this time.

Being very weak...

No, not being very weak. Managing a situation which he was unable completely to cure.

He could have cured it by being stronger, surely. Every time he seemed to give in to Gordon Brown.

Look, it's very easy for an outsider to say of a prime minister that he should have done this or that. He had to trade off or balance the frustrations of having a difficult chancellor, but also a good and effective one in many respects. And on the other hand, the risk of disruption, destabilisation of his government and the party if he had shuffled Gordon out of the Treasury. Now, that is a judgement call that only a prime minister can make and it's easy for an outsider - and we are all outsiders if we're not the prime minister - to say that he should have done this or could have done that. True, there were options. But his judgement had to be about what was in the broader interests of the government. How was he going to sustain it. And if you contrast Blair with Thatcher, Thatcher's cabinet fell apart at the end of the 1980s. She drove very senior members to resignation. They walked out and finally got rid of her. That didn't happen in Blair's case.

It did in Brown's.

Well, one person resigned.

Hazel Blears, James Purnell, others.

Fine, but I'm talking about Tony Blair now. You asked me a question about Tony Blair. Was he right or wrong? And I'm saying it's very easy for us to say he should have done this, he should have done that. But if he had shuffled Gordon he might have created the same circumstances which saw Thatcher's cabinet breaking up at the end of the ‘80s.

You talked about the broader interest of the government. What about the broader interests of the country, because I can't understand how you, Alastair, Tony Blair - you experienced these deeply unbalanced rages from time to time - how could you have allowed...

Politics is about passion.

Yes, passion sure. But this went beyond that. The way that Alastair writes it up, the way that you write it up, it's not just about passion. There was something deeply, fundamentally wrong about the way that he would react to situations. And yet he was unopposed as party leader.

In a lot of cases Gordon was right. Gordon came into government in ‘97 with a clearer game plan and a set of policies about what he was going to achieve than Tony did for the government as a whole.

I agree with that. He had a brilliant side to him, and no doubt still does. But I would argue that he wasn't fit to be prime minister and yet he was elected unopposed. Every single Labour MP knew what he was like, they all knew, and yet none of them had the guts to do anything about it.

Who's the person who called for a contest rather than a coronation. Me! I was the only person who did. I went on the Andrew Marr programme when I was being interviewed from Brussels and said that in my view the interests of the party, the government and the country would be served by a contest, not a coronation. And I was right. Because Gordon suffered more than anyone from the shoe-in.

What was your biggest frustration in the election campaign? That you didn't have the resources that you were used to?

We certainly had zero resources. It was shocking. We couldn't even use our ad-agency. We had no bought media. That wasn't the case in 1987, let alone 1997. My second frustration was that we had failed to hammer out an electoral strategy and only the leader can make sure that happens. As I describe in my book, that process hadn't happened. Look, what I wanted was to get the best possible result in the circumstances but above all to see the Labour Party united and with its dignity intact whatever the outcome. And keeping that campaign together, keeping it on track, making sure that we didn't either fall out or fall apart was quite an achievement, given the pressures.

I was the guy in overall charge. I wasn't organising the campaign itself, others were meant to be doing that. But if I made any contribution it was to ensure that we emerged with dignity and much to people's surprise we even emerged having robbed Cameron of an overall majority.

That was a surprise to you? You thought that he was going to win...

Of course it was a surprise, because it's not happened in British politics. It hadn't happened since 1974 and even that was a real flash in the pan.

So had you not planned at all for a hung parliament?

The polls did not indicate that that would be the outcome. In my view we could and should have started paving the way for that eventuality not weeks before, but years before, because we needed a good relationship with the Liberal Democrats of the sort that Cameron and Clegg were able to create. We hadn't put in that spadework.

In his book on the coalition, David Laws contrasts what your negotiating team were able to do and the Tories. And believe me, there was a great contrast.

Do you know the difference? The Tories had a head start. They had very good personal chemistry between their two leaders.

But they hadn't beforehand. They barely knew each other.

No, no, no, no please. They did. I know a little bit more about this. Thirdly, and most importantly, that was the outcome they wanted.

I shall send you a copy of the book, because I think you'll find it very interesting. Obviously he's writing it from a Liberal Democrat perspective.

I'm sorry Iain, but with the number of seats that we won, we were not in a good second place. We lost that election and to put together such a coalition and stay in power on the back of it would have been a very hard if not an impossible thing for us to achieve. Secondly, I stand by my view. It's not a criticism, it's an observation. Chemistry between Cameron and Clegg was good.

You heard the conversation initially between Brown and Clegg didn't you? You were there.

I heard all the conversations and indeed, was in the key meeting...

...and it was sort of a one-way conversation...

...no it wasn't. No it wasn't a one-way conversation, I'm sorry. Read my book.

I have read it.

It's not a one-way conversation. Iain, please don't introduce your views and prejudices...

I'm not. I'm just saying...well I'm not introducing mine I'm inducing David Laws’...

It was not a one-way conversation. It was a perfectly good conversation between Gordon and Nick. But it wasn't one in my view that was going to deliver a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition. The personalities were wrong. The politics didn't stack up.

I agree with that. I said that right at the beginning and on the election night.

But don't blame me or the Labour Party. It would have helped and made a difference if we'd won just 20 or 25 more seats. But we didn't.

QUICK FIRE

What book are you reading at the moment?

Niall Ferguson's biography of Siegmund Warburg.

What's your favourite view?

The view from Anacapri towards Naples.

Best friend in politics?

Roger Liddle

What food do you most enjoy? Apart from mushy peas obviously.

Unfattening Italian.

What do you do to relax?

Read, run and cycle, and look at DVDs, but very infrequently.

What makes you cry?

Emotion.

Invite four people to a dinner party, living or dead.

In politics they would be people like Hugh Gaitskell, Harold Macmillan, Jack or Bobby Kennedy. What women would I invite? Difficult. Oh, Barbara Castle.

Which period in history would you most liked to have lived through?

The Second World War and the Labour government that followed.

If the producers of Strictly Come Dancing come knocking at your door, what might you say?

They had their opportunity and now they can get lost.

Tags: Iain Dale, In conversation, Peter Mandelson