Peter Mandelson has decided to end the speculation that he is angling to become the next Prime Minister, speculation that I helped launch some weeks ago. The Telegraph quote Mandelson as saying in the above Sky News interview clip that:
"I have no prospect and no plans of standing as leader of the Labour Party.... I am a member of the House of Lords. There is no opportunity for me to divest myself of my life peerage. A peerage is for life. A life peerage is a life peerage.... "It is me officially ruling it out.... In this country, if you are made a life peer, it's for life. It's like a life sentence."The odd thing is I think he may have still left himself a get out; at present he is correct to say "There is no opportunity for me to divest myself of my life peerage. A peerage is for life. A life peerage is a life peerage" but once that barrier is lifted could he say that now the law has changed and because the Labour party and the Country needs him...
In The Spectator, Simon Hoggart, relates a nasty dream he had recently about Peter Mandelson becoming Prime Minister, do read the whole chilling piece but here's an extract:
"Gordon Brown, neither a fool nor a slouch, knew that the end had come. He announced his resignation that lunchtime. With only a few months before the last possible date for an election, the headless and fear-stricken MPs acted swiftly to prevent the unions and members having any say. Johnson had backed out; nobody wanted Miliband, at least not yet. Mandelson was their choice, and the only one offered. There would be an emergency bill to let him renounce his peerage, and he would parachute into Durham North-West, where Labour’s 53 per cent majority might just get him back in the Commons."
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