The Third Man: Life at the Heart of New Labour [Hardcover]

William Hague once joked in the House of Commons that the only title that Lord Mandelson lacked under the Brown Government was that of Archbishop. Perhaps the only reason for this is that Mandelson's "Jesuit like fervour" thus far has been generally been lavished on politics, although nothing should be ruled out. Love him or hate him Peter Mandelson is the consummate politician and media showman. Watching interviews by him in support of the book he is still playing down the level of visceral hatred that consumed the New Labour Project but for every one page of analysis in "The Third Man" there are at least another twenty which highlight the cronic dysfunction and the bitter tribalist soap opera that consumed British Government since 1997. Reading this book you sense clearly that Mandelson was at his "best" as the spinmiester starting work for Neil Kinnock, then as one of the architects of New Labour. He was of course at that time the man with the terrible moustache, not yet outed by Matthew Parris but the with a fearsome reputation building as a late 20th Century Machiavelli as he intimidated the media and other politicians but combined this with a sinister charm and waspish wit. His ability to think on his feet is clearly second to none, but it comes no where near to his plotting skills and you forget how closely he came in 2008 to destroying George Osborne in the Oleg Deripaska affair.

Of the two great protagonists in the "Third Man" allegedly Tony Blair is happy with Mandelson's portrayal. Yet it is far from sympathetic, indeed Blair is portrayed as a man bent on action but someone who was fundamentally weak when it came to dealing with Brown and his supporters. Blair's announcement of additional spending on health on the BBC led to a volcanic reaction from his Chancellor and a counter cabinet which constantly micro managed Blair's ambition on public services reform through the prism of the Treasury. On the other great drama Mandelson was a bit player when it came to the Iraq War and his insights about the failure to plan the rebuilding/recovery phase are of limited interest. But what is fascinating is that more than Blair it is Mandelson's relationship with his nemesis Gordon Brown that is at the heart of this book. Mandelson describes Brown as "hair-raisingly difficult to work with", almost "impossible to advise" and these are some of the friendlier comments. As such Mandelson's attempt to justify the greatest feat of political hatchet burying in modern politics is explained in the following terms "We had been through too much together since the founding days of the modernising avant-garde to relapse into sulkiness or acrimony. We had come to understand each other again. We respected each other. We liked each other.".

Do we believe him? The answer is of course we don't. Mandelson needed Brown in the same way that the Brown needed Mandelson, based not on friendship but pure political expediency, combined with the lustre of power and most of all the will to survive. Mandelson clearly knew that Brown's chances of winning a general election were almost zero. You smile when you read that in response to Harriet Harman's suggestion of "future, family and fairness" as the strap line for Labours campaign of 2010, Peter Mandelson suggested an alternative to a meeting with Alastair Darling and Douglas Alexander that they replace the words with "futile", "finished", and "f**k*d".

Everything about this book is controversial. Its title the "Third Man" sticks another two fingers up at his old enemy and newly enshrined fellow member of the Lords, John Prescott (or "Two Ermine's" as he is now known). Its timing after May 2010 is particularly raw and it comes "smack bang" into the epicentre of a incredibly dull Labour leadership contest which cannot hope to compete with the revelations of this supreme master media manipulator. It also acts as the overture for what will be the main opera when Tony Blair releases his own autobiography "A Journey" in September. Finally one imagines that over the past week a minor earthquake may have registered on the Richter scale in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath as Gordon Brown MP reads Mandelson's weighty tome. You suspect that while Mandelson may be the "Third Man" and that his story is well told (if sometimes in very cringeworthy terms) this is a three act drama that has yet to fully unfold and the political dagger that hangs over the New Labour project may yet to be fully drawn.

I decided that I wanted to read an account of the New Labour years following the recent change in Government. After some debate, I decided to go for this book over the various other main contenders for a few reasons. Firstly, I didn't have the patience to wait for Blairs, secondly, I simply couldn't believe I would get any sort of frank account from one of the Alistair Campbell ones. Finally, I just had a gut feeling that this would be particularly honest and open in terms of the Blair/Brown relationship as I didn't see what motive Mr Mandelson would have for holding back, something not the case with the other authors I mentioned.
What a good decision this turned out to be. The account is very open, astonishingly so in places, and makes for an entertaining read, or should I say listen, as I actually had the audio CD version, which was if anything enhanced by Mandelson doing the reading.
As with any book, people need to read this and make up their own mind, but what really struck me about this was the sense that New Labour really never achieved what it promised due to the relationship between Blair/Brown, and I did sense genuine regret from Mandelson on this. Tony Blair actually comes across pretty well, but Gordon Brown comes across very poorly (if we are to believe this account and many others that support it). Mandelson provides strong evidence that for the first few years of power Mr Brown convinced himself he had been cheated out of the top job, which led to constant attempts to outmaneuver and undermine Blair, to the extent that it really did affect the success of New Labour. If there is one resounding conclusion you can draw from this, its that Blair should have had the decisiveness to address this issue firmly early on, but once this was left to ferment, it simply got worse and harder to deal with, which unfortunately it never was.
In summary, a frank account, which if you can look past a touch too much self justification, is a surprisingly honest and entertaining read, made even better if you go for the audio book route.

This is simultaneously a fascinating and an excruciating book.

Mandelson does, I think rightly, have a reputation for the political `dark arts' - he is the epitome of the move towards political spinning. If Mandelson is to be believed, and here I am (for a change) inclined to do so, he was as much a follower of the whim of the other two points of the New Labour triumvirate of Blair and Brown who sort him to `pull the strings from the background.

All three have since leaving government written books. True to form Brown's contribution is a quasi-academic economic book (which I've not read) whilst Blair's (horrendous) effort along with Mandelson's is a political `expose' of life in government. Where The Third Man beats Blair's A Journey is it actually has some political substance (however wrong I may think that politics may be).

Certainly the highlight is the very interesting portrayal of the Blair-Brown tension, a tension that Mandelson suggests arose far earlier than has commonly been supposed. For all that there is a significant undertone of self-righteousness and settling the score that I find extremely distasteful. If you can stomach that then it is an interesting although I suspect in the longer term forgettable book.