Labor Stumbles in Britain

...His departure was not simply that of another politician caught in a dubious deal by the relentless and unforgiving media...

...But the Conservative Party's opinion polls ratings remain abysmal, and Hague continues to be so unpopular that some senior Tories appear desperate to get rid of him...

...Mandelson held out for a little more than a day, granting media interviews to try to convince everyone that he was guilty of no more than a stupid error...

...The London Times saw the Mandelson affair as "the end of innocence" for the Blair government...

...The contrast with the stumbling, fumbling, sleaze-ridden, still feuding Conservatives Blair and his new Labor Party ran out of office in the elections almost two years ago was dazzling...

...He sorely misses Mandelson's counsel and spin doctoring...

...He was to prepare the way for greater British economic integration with the EU, if that seemed advisable once the potentially momentous consequences of the single euro currency adopted by most of the EU on January 1 became clear...

...The Prime Minister is not so much worried about the Tories, though their charge that "cronyism" is debasing the government has begun to bite and they have been snapping at Blair with increased confidence...

...Last summer, in recognition of his remarkable abilities, the Prime Minister shifted Mandelson from his advisory role as Minister Without Portfolio to the Department of Trade and Industry, to take on an even more important task than the one he had performed for the Labor Party...

...Besides overseeing the government's business promotion policies, he was assigned the task of building closer relations with the European nations, especially Germany...

...In reluctantly accepting his resignation Blair told him, "It is no exaggeration to say that without your support and advice we would never have built new Labor...

...He remains more popular than any other British politician, and retains the ability to fight off any threat to his authority in Parliament and the Labor Party...

...In sum, the Prime Minister had proved himself to be an engaging, articulate leader, embarked—as his spin doctors constantly assured the British people—on a long-term program of turning this country into a better place...

...Norman Gelb reports regularly for The New Leader on British affairs...

...No longer...

...He promised that his government would not only be squeaky clean it would be "purer than pure...

...internal divisions of the kind that plagued previous Labor governments are edging out into the open...

...The Labor Party could certainly use his talents...

...He enjoyed a massive opinion poll lead over opposition leader William Hague of the Conservative Party...

...The transaction was not in the same league as the corruption perpetuated by Tory parliamentarians who took cash and expensive gifts from individuals whose concerns they were expected to represent in the House of Commons...

...He was widely supported for resisting further British integration in the European Union (EU) at the expense of national sovereignty, while keeping open the option to change course in the future should that seem to the country's advantage...

...He had borrowed the money from another figure in the Blair government, Geoffrey Robinson, the appropriately titled Paymaster General...

...He had for the most part weathered criticism about Britain appearing to be an American puppet because it was the only nation that joined the United States in last October's Operation Desert Fox air strikes against Iraq...

...A man with his contacts would have had no difficulty finding a politically safe way to acquire the money for the home he so badly wanted in order to escape from a modest flat in north London...

...His huge majority in the House of Commons was untouched and untouchable...

...The bottom line is that Tony Blair, who had seemed to be handling the job of Prime Minister effortlessly, is suddenly finding it tougher to handle...

...According to several of his friends, his great ambition was to become a member of the British government, which he briefly achieved, and perhaps Foreign Secretary one day...

...For two years he has been dismissive of such challenges, and has largely managed to silence them...

...Ironically, all this has coincided with the release of previously secret documents showing Labor Minister of Power Ray Gunter, 30 years ago, snarling that he could not stand "the middle-class bastards" among his Cabinet colleagues...

...In addition, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has signaled his unhappiness about too much talk and not enough action to date on Labor's basic social principles...

...The terms of the loan were unquestionably generous, yet they were not totally improper and Mandelson had already begun paying it back...

...It is known, for instance, that Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, the second most important person in Whitehall, has stayed closer than Blair to their sources on the party's left.Oneof Brown's aides is widely rumored to have leaked word of the Mandelson house loan to the press in a bid to bring him down...

...He had been one of the chief architects of the transformation of the Labor Party from a "broad church" of squabbling factions into an enormously popular centrist movement, friendly to the middle classes and to business while retaining a strong commitment to social justice...

...No, of greater concern to the Prime Minister at this point are the elements within the Labor Party that object to his presidential, centralized leadership, his friendliness with big business, and his attempts to reform Britain's welfare state...

...Also, he had not declared the loan in the Register of Interests of members of Parliament, as he should have...

...But the government's reputation was seriously tarnished by the revelation and would be damaged further if he stayed, so out he went...

...It was at worst a foolish mistake...

...On the face of it, the fact that Trade and Industry Minister Peter Mandelson had personally borrowed $630,000 to buy a house in London's fashionable Notting Hill district two years ago did not appear to be a matter of profound malfeasance...

...But he now has to fight his way through many controversies that would have barely troubled him in the past...

...Some disgruntled party figures on the far left, who hadbeen intimidated by Blair's commanding position and confined themselves to grumbling, today feel they can voice their objections to government policy more forcefully...

...Now here was a Cabinet member, one of the Prime Minister's chief advisers and a close friend, who had slyly received a big loan that would be denied ordinary citizens...

...A cry of "They're all the same" rose across the land...

...So when disaster struck at the end of December it was hard to believe how quickly his invulnerability was crumbling...

...Labor's image of incorruptibility withered overnight...

...The contrast that had been drawn between Labor integrity and Tory tawdriness vanished in the public mind...

...Mandelson had devised and supervised the public relations campaign that swept Labor into power after its long wanderings in the political wilderness, earning himself the sobriquet "Prince of Darkness" for his highly successful media manipulations...

...Moreover, had he declared the loan in the Register of Interests in the House of Commons, some questions might have been asked but he would at least have been in a position to answer them, if not brush them aside...

...That latter is not very likely, certainly not soon, but it isn't altogether beyond the realm of possibility a few years down the line...

...He is trying to regain his commanding invulnerability, so far without success...

...Yet in his election campaign the Prime Minister had declared that unlike his Tory predecessors, he would be "tough on sleaze, and tough on the causes of sleaze...

...At first, what was involved seemed too trivial to have a serious impact...

...There is much amazement here that a person as clever, imaginative and sophisticated as Mandelson destroyed himself politically when he could easily have sidestepped the problem...

...Given his skills and reputation, Mandelson could at present eam enough as a business consultant to afford practically any home in London he wished to buy...

...There was a potential conflict of interest, however, that could not be tolerated in a Cabinet member...

...Blair deeply regrets not having them at the moment, when his government is confronting the first major test of its credibility...

...Nevertheless, the affair is a tragedy for him...

...His personal contribution to the Northern Ireland peace effort had won him plaudits and (for the moment at least) ended the drain the "troubles" there had been on Britain's Treasury and world image...

...Peter Mandelson was a majorpersonahty in British public life...

...Some of the business affairs of the wealthy Robinson have come under investigation by Mandelson's ministry (though he had conspicuously distanced himself from that inquiry...