Peter Mandelson expressed his concern that Jeremy Corbyn's leadership is a problem not just for Labour, but for the country, when he appeared on the BBC's HardTalk last night. "It is a very, very bad and sad day for this country," Lord Mandelson said, "when we do not have a serious opposition and a serious alternative to the Government."I am not sure where Peter Mandelson has been keeping himself since September 12th, but there is more serious and active opposition by the current Opposition than we have seen in the Labour Party in many a long year.
During the interview by Stephen Sackur, Mandelson repeated many of the same old untruths and bits of misinformation that we have read and heard in the media over the last several months. His claims that Jeremy Corbyn is "far-left", that Harriet Harman opened the door to everyone to join in with the £3 vote, that Jeremy Corbyn changed his mind about Trident at the Labour Party Conference, and that despite Corbyn's claim of his belief in equality he appointed men to the top Shadow Cabinet positions.
Just for the record, Corbyn is not "far-left", his views reflect those of many others on the left or centre-left (not far-left or hard-left or even ultra-hard-left!) of the Party, even many in the centre of it! In fact, until the Blairite tendency moved the Party so far to the right that it was hard to differentiate between the Blairites and the Tories, Corbyn's views on many issues were pretty much standard Labour Party policy!
Harriet Harman did not come up with the £3 vote scheme. It was actually a change brought in by Ed Miliband in 2014 and supported by Mandelson's former boss, Tony Blair! In fact Blair actually said that it was a reform that his own leadership should have thought of.
And as for the Trident issue at Party Conference, that was not Corbyn's call either. At Labour Party conferences there is a committee which determines which subjects are debated. The short-list of subjects are put to a vote of those attending, thus it was conference itself which decided not to discuss the issue of Trident this year.
As for the top Shadow Cabinet positions statement, this is very much a macho attitude! That positions of Chancellor, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary are seen as the Top Jobs reflects an out-of-date view of what are priorities in government and society. Implying that the other Shadow Cabinet roles are less important denigrates whole sectors of society. It infers that health, education, employment, business, welfare, environment, transport, etc are less important issues, whereas to the electorate and I suspect to Corbyn these are most often the most important aspects of government as they have a direct and personal effect on each and every one of us. Cut backs in health or education funding have a more direct impact on us than does our foreign policy, yet Foreign Secretary is considered to be a Top Job by some. Clearly Corbyn will form his own opinions on what is important, but his first Shadow Cabinet does have a majority of women members - the first time any frontbench team has done so, so that's one up for him then!
Now we have corrected Lord Mandelson, what else can we say about the interview? Jeremy Corbyn is unelectable, and he cannot lead the Labour Party to victory and government, seems to be two main themes of Mandelson's spiel. In between the chest-beating mea culpa lament of "We didn't make enough changes ourself" and "We lost our way" type comments, it is quite clear that Mandelson has no intention of supporting the new leader or his attempt to win the next election. There was a lot of talk of "being ready" for when Corbyn goes (he said stands down but could just as easily have meant gets pushed out) and lots of guff about the Party not sharing Corbyn's aims for the Party, despite his "stonking" victory in the leadership election with just shy of 60% of the votes across all three voting sections.
Mandelson's sly inference that it was only the £3 supporters and the trades unions members voting that gave Corbyn his victory belies the fact that the full member vote of 121,751 out of 245,520 for Corbyn was only just shy of the 50% victory mark in itself, A further 1,010 full members voting for him would have given Corbyn the leadership even without the ability of the registered supporters and the trades unions members to vote, and Corbyn polled almost as many votes alone as the other three candidates did between them! On that basis Mandelson cannot justify any claim that full members do not agree with Jeremy Corbyn's policies.
Mandelson's claimed that 47% of the people who voted Labour in the 2015 General Election do not see Corbyn as leadership material, but that could also mean that 53% do see him as such! But what about the 35% of the electorate who have not voted for anyone, many of whom claim they cannot see any difference between the Tories, LibDems and New Labour, so why vote? Those people are amongst the sector of the electorate which has been excited and energised by the emergence of Corbyn as the Labour Party Leader. Many of them are becoming politically active for the first time ever, and come 2020 they will no longer be in the silent third, they will be voting!
Meanwhile, right across the country members and supporters are readying themselves to fight local elections in 2016. Indeed, some are already planning their campaign in the by-election caused by the death recently of the veteran MP, Michael Meacher. Those of us who will be campaigning for local council seats do so in the strong hope that this will help the Party win votes and seats in the general election in 2020 also. We expect that it will be a hard fight; after all, we have to reconnect with an electorate that has become increasingly disillusioned with the New Labour Party of Blair and Mandelson, and it is to them that we have to establish our credibility as a Party fit for government. That job will be made all the harder by the whingers and the doomsayers, such as Mandelson, undermining the Party's democratically elected leader! So my message to him, and others like him, is this, "Button it! Support Corbyn. Help us win!"
