Spinning Out Of Control

The mightiest spin doctor of our time has now spun out of control. Peter Mandelson's lost the plot, and is now doing himself more damage than he is his party, his colleagues, his Prime Minister. A tragedy of our time.

Peter Mandelson and I first met in the early 1980s, when he was at Weekend World. He rang me on the Sunday before going for the interview the following day to become Director of Communications at the Labour Party. I did what I could to help him, briefing him on what I knew about the various people who he had ascertained would be on the selection panel. He was doing his homework, as he always did.

I worked with him from the time he became the Communications Director and Campaign Director of the Labour Party, introduced him to Michael Wolff, the creator of Labour's 'red rose', conducted scores of focus groups and many surveys for him, went through the 1987 election with him, shared with him all I could of our professional skills and commitment to his organisation, our client. I admired his focus, his dedication, his endeavour, his intellect, and his ambition.

I did not admire his duplicity, his deviousness in dealing with people, his underhanded spinning against those who stood in his way to get whatever it was he thought he wanted or needed to make his way upwards and onwards. He was ruthless in his ambition, and willing to lay down the (political) lives of his friends to achieve what he wanted, whether it was control over the most minute detail of the campaign, or his own political agenda.

Why do I tell members of the IPR reading this column all of this? Sure, it is of interest generally. Few 'chattering class' meals these days fail to examine the twists and turnings of this remarkable story as it unfolds. From being close to achieving his life's ambition, to follow in his grandfather's footsteps to become Foreign Secretary, he has now apparently thrown away not only any chance of achieving that goal, but also the alternative goal of appointment to be a UK Commissioner at the European Commission in Brussels. All for lack of judgement and excess of ego.

Alan Parker is probably the most successful PR person of our time. Alan is seldom in the press, never so far as he can help it, on radio or television. I have heard him say many times that a PR person 'should never get between his client and the footlights'. By that he meant that his client's needs are best served if it is the client, not the PR person, who should be seen in the glare of the media when it suits him, and not have the attention focussed on himself. Good advice.

Mandelson left PR behind. His ambitions were greater. He took on the championing of the Dome to emulate Herbert Morrison's 1951 Festival of Britain leadership. When Labour was still in Opposition he pushed one fellow Labour politician off a key committee I happened to have been a long standing member of, who told me he'd been asked by Tony to make way for Peter, signalling Peter even then was eyeing the Foreign Secretary's post. After his first resignation, it was curious how in one Sunday newspaper there would be a spin against Mo, the Northern Ireland Minister, while in another Sunday newspaper there would be a spin against Chris Smith, the Minister for Culture, the two spots in the Cabinet which Peter could aspire to.

'Friends of Peter Mandelson' say this and that to the press, or so they report. Now, in Joe Murphy's revealing column in the Sunday Telegraph, we know just who these 'friends' are: Peter himself.

What do we make of all this, and more? That the role of the PR person, or any professional person, should be to act first in the interests of his or her client, second in the interest of the organisation, and third in their own best interests, for in the long term their own best interests will be best served.

Icarus flew too close to the sun. Peter Mandelson played too fast and loose with his colleagues, his client, his staff, and his friends. His final act did not bring him down. What did was his continual failure to understand that no matter how clever you are, how focussed you are, how able you are, you have to have some humility, give some credit for those who help you, give of yourself, and not expect everyone who stands in your way to be willing to be pushed aside and not hold resentment.

Our recent poll for the Mail on Sunday found three quarters of the public said they thought that the Prime Minister was wrong to reappoint Peter Mandelson to the Cabinet. By nearly two to one they not only want Mandelson out of the Cabinet, but out of Parliament, to resign as Member of Parliament for Hartlepool.

The fact that MORI conducted its regular poll for the Times just before Mandelson's spectacular departure from the Government, with the fieldwork on the weekend before his fall midweek, and the Mail on Sunday commissioned to test public opinion the weekend after, we are able to measure the impact all this has had on voting intentions. The net effect: virtually nil. This was confirmed by the near identical findings of the Gallup poll in the Telegraph a week later. This will be Peter Mandelson's political epitaph. A lesson for us all.

The Mandelson Effect

Q QV1 How would you vote if there were a General Election tomorrow? [If undecided or refused at Q1] Q Which party are you most inclined to support?