Did Lord Sainsbury have a role in getting Peter Mandelson his new job?

I might have been mistaken but I'm sure I saw Peter Mandelson having breakfast with Lord Sainsbury on at least two occasions at Labour conference in Manchester. Did anybody else see them together at a rather grand round table in the Radisson Edwardian hotel or is it just my fevered imagination?

Since the appointment of the single most divisive politician in recent Labour history to the Cabinet of Labour's most troubled and fractured government in recent history I can't have been alone in wondering why on earth Gordon Brown would give a job to one of his sworn enemies.

Surely it couldn't be that Sainsbury (one of the last serious non-union funders of Labour) threatened to pull the plug unless there were some serious changes in government? No, of course not.

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