Posts Tagged ‘Peter Mandelson’
The Dunkirk Spirit
Gotta Get Home To Vote!
I can see it now. Gordon as beachmaster in his tin hat. Long lines of stranded tourists and businessmen queuing out into the surf to be rescued by our plucky boys and ferried home to Blighty. Look, there’s Alistair falling over in the waves again and I can see Peter is serving tea and bully beef sarnies to anyone who’ll listen to him for a couple of minutes.
Our Fearless Leader
Ed Balls is smiling broadly as he builds sandcastles with some of the kids and his missus, Yvette, is trying out her French with some of the locals. Alan Johnson is refusing to listen to any of his advisors as he loads more and more Labour voters into overcrowded rowing boats.
Don't Panic! Me And The Missus Are Here
The two Milliband brothers are checking who can get a place and who can’t, “Labour voters this way. Women, children and Tories wait your turn!”
Another glorious defeat plucked from the jaws of victory.
“We’ll fight them on the beaches, on the landing grounds, at airports up and down the country. I knew we could rely on Iceland to come to our rescue. If the volcano won’t come to Gordon, then Gordon will go to the volcano. No more boom and bust. Vote Labour or die!
Don’t panic! Don’t panic”
Labour Voters This Way!
…And He Can Walk On Water
Or so Peter Mandelson would have us believe! Congratulations to him. If he can do it so can I. I can reprise him too. My first ever published article in the national press (The Independent) toyed with my confrontation with the man himself at the junction of Ledbury Road and Westbourne Grove. 
It must have been about 1994. I think around the time of his mortgage scandal. I was gently cycling southwards and as I crossed over this dishevelled, unshaven and grumpy looking character loped along the Westbourne Grove pavement and wanted to cross. The look he gave me when I didn’t give way was enough to freeze the blood of any parliamentary minion and only then did I realise who he was
My abiding memory is of his crumpled shorts – so crumpled. As if they’d been screwed up tight in his fist before beng worn.
And at the instant I think to myself “hasn’t he aged?”, I know the same must be true of me. He has done so with dignity and now looks more the statesman than the aggressive spin doctor.
All hail Peter! You’re back. And in fine fettle!
Peter Reynolds 