Mandy makes loud-mouthed woman on train cry. (Is that reason alone to love this man and want him to be Our Dear Leader?)
Every day and in every way, I love this wonderful man more and more ...
Choice quotes:
His skin is dewy, as if fresh from a spa facial, and his grooming so flawless he looks almost hyper-real, the cuff links and tie delicately co-ordinated, with their detail inversely echoed in his socks. I'd swear he even has his eyebrows shaped, though he denies it – "What, pay someone to rip my eyebrows out? Is that some kind of sexual thing?" His whole body seems weirdly untroubled by the passage of time, his govements fluid to the point of feline, but it's the voice above all which can mesmerise. He talks very softly – that old trick for winning people's attention that John Prescott, for one, never learned – and unusually slowly, giving the impression that every single word is invested with deep significance, even when it's quite innocuous.
The gift for mockery that used to be deployed at others' expense now tends to be directed at himself; when he says of the economic recovery, "we are in the post-intervention, pre-delivery stage", each syllable is enunciated to acknowledge the absurdity of his own jargon. At times his phrasing can be almost antiquated – he once tried to resign as honorary life president of Hartlepool United FC, he says, "but they wouldn't hear of it" – and his command of the dramatic pause would be hammy if it weren't always so exquisitely timed.
His skin is dewy, as if fresh from a spa facial, and his grooming so flawless he looks almost hyper-real, the cuff links and tie delicately co-ordinated, with their detail inversely echoed in his socks. I'd swear he even has his eyebrows shaped, though he denies it – "What, pay someone to rip my eyebrows out? Is that some kind of sexual thing?" His whole body seems weirdly untroubled by the passage of time, his movements fluid to the point of feline, but it's the voice above all which can esmerise. He talks very softly – that old trick for winning people's attention that John Prescott, for one, never learned – and unusually slowly, giving the impression that every single word is invested with deep significance, even when it's quite innocuous.
It turns out that we're not actually going to eat lunch – because, as far as I can tell, Mandelson seldom eats anything at all. For breakfast he has granola and green tea, to which Carole Caplin converted him in 1994 – "One of her enduring legacies," he murmurs archly. He doesn't bother with lunch, though if he's in the Lords he likes to steal an apple from Baroness Royall's office, and in the afternoons his PA fetches him some kind of chocolate bar from Pret A Manger – "A sort of tiffin thing, it's very nice." If he has to attend a dinner he will stay for the first course, then make his speech and head home, where he hasn't cooked for as long as he can remember. The last actual meal that I can identify seems to have been consumed 48 hours earlier.
"Peter Mandelson talks exclusively about his anorexia!" an aide quips, provoking much amusement in the car. "My diet chiefly involves me being hungry," Mandelson concedes, sounding rather proud of the fact. "But it's having a good effect on me. It's making me, well, not lean and mean, as I was – just lean and hungry."
When we arrive I'm completely taken aback at the former PM's appearance, for he resembles a bad actor playing Blair in the grip of some awful psychiatric meltdown. He really does look quite mad, with his face over the place – a grotesque dance of eyebrows and teeth, manically gurning away, every feature in permanent motion – beside which Mandelson looks like a vision of poised sophistication.
"If you stay with me for the rest of the day," he offers casually, eating a grape, with an unmistakable hint of showing off, "you'll end up with Gordon."
He does, of course, talk at length about Brown's qualities when prompted; "a big brain . . . decisive intellect . . . leader for these times . . . highly respected . . . will be vindicated in due course," none of which is terribly original, but Mandelson has a remarkable quality for appearing believable, even though what he often is is merely on message. Rather like Max Clifford, he has a gift for sounding as if he's always telling the truth, even when you know it's his job not to; he has somehow managed to retain the credibility of a disinterested outsider, despite having returned to the heart of government.
In a recent select committee, a Tory MP recalled that Margaret Thatcher once "famously made the remark that every prime minister needs a Willie [Whitelaw]. So you are the prime minister's Willie. Is that your role?" After a perfectly timed pause, Mandelson replied, "I'm tempted to extend the metaphor, but decorum – " bringing the house down. He teased a recent press gallery lunch with tales of being woken by "Jack tugging at my duvet", enjoying the hacks' consternation – who the hell is Jack? – before explaining, "Why, my dog, of course." Even his sexuality, once a semi-closeted source of, if not quite paranoia, then prickliness, is now a weapon in his armoury.It is Mandelson's personality, not policy, which holds the country in his thrall.
But all the talk in Westminster is now of Mandelson returning to the Commons – to become the next leader of the Labour party.
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