A new edition of Donald Macintyre's biography of Peter Mandelson suggests that the undisgraced Northern Ireland Secretary will support Gordon Brown in any future election for the Labour leadership. Ir'n Broon is unmoved. "Can't he support somebody else?" he asked colleagues.
No 10's nasties rue the day they helped the Observer columnist Andrew Rawnsley write his "inside story" of new Labour, which seeks to dis the Chancellor by calling him a liar. However, the author toured Brighton telling anyone who would listen that no fewer than six ministers had privately congratulated him. Which makes them even more stupid than we suspected.
Rory Bremner is filming an hour-long spectacular for showing in the autumn, in which Prince Charles is arraigned for ripping up a field of GM crops. The show also sacks Alastair Campbell, although Bremner's script for Tony Blair's conference speech had only one theme: "Sack Mandelson."
Denis MacShane has done all thoughtful folk a great favour by writing an essay in praise of the political novel in which he revises the memory of Wilfred Fienburgh, the Labour MP, who died mysteriously in a car crash just as he finished No Love for Johnnie, the best sex'n'politics novel of postwar years. I chanced upon it in a charity shop in Dumfries during the recess, and read it at a single sitting. He makes Edwina Currie, Douglas Hurd and Michael Dobbs look like amateurs. The book was made into a film, but it is overripe for television. Fienburgh invented opportunistic new Labour before Blair was born.
I must say that David Burnside, the losing Ulster Unionist candidate in the South Antrim by-election, takes defeat on the chin. "Apart from the personal disappointment, it was the right result," he tells me. He lost to country-and-western loonie William Macrae, the DUP anti-Good Friday Agreement candidate. As a result, insists Burnside, David Trimble will be forced out of the power-sharing executive this month if the IRA does not hand in hundreds of guns and tons of explosives.
Self-sacking ex-minister Peter Kilfoyle is taking his newfound freedom of expression a bit far. Spotting Blairite guru Philip Gould at a party function, he bore down on him and expostulated: "Didn't do much good for the Sandinistas, did you?" This slighting reference to Gould's less than successful role in the Nicaraguan elections really hurts.
The Beeb is making a political documentary about Betty Boothroyd, in which she has agreed to star. Madam Speaker will be filmed among her adoring subjects in her native Dewsbury. (I mention this only to point out that my book on the great lady has just been republished.) Further particulars on the succession front. Sir George Young, the Tory bicycling baronet, has indicated that he will stand, and the former Cabinet office minister David Clarke has also thrown his hat in the ring. John Butterfield, Conservative MP for Indecision (West), can't make up his mind.
A deal is being cooked up to bring Ken Livingstone back into the Labour Party, despite his grotesque breach of rule. In return for his support in the capital next year, the London mayor will be re-admitted if he accepts a watered-down version of the private financing of the Tube. It stinks, but it might work.
John Reid, the Scottish Secretary, was refused admission to the ITN party by a lady bouncer with an uneven grasp of Cabinet faces. It's not the first time. ITN wouldn't let in Jack Cunningham when he was Cabinet enforcer. At least they fared better than Nick Raynsford, who was forced to open his red box by Group 4 security staff because they didn't believe any minister travelled by bus. Standing at the back of the conference hall, Tony Blair's staff were evidently very cross that Gordon Brown got a long standing ovation. They tutt-tutted as they timed it, obviously preparing to ensure that the great helmsman got even more applause.
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