Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Drowned Out By Mandelson's Crisps

I suppose my chief memory of today has to be the moment I was drowned out on national radio ... by a packet of crisps. It wasn't any old packet of crisps. It was a packet being consumed, nay, chomped on by no less a personage than the First Secretary of State himself. Peter Mandelson, for it was he, had finished giving his answer to 5 Lives's Peter Allen so decided to tuck in while I responded to a quizzing from 5 Live's silver fox. Half way through my answer I was interrupted by the programme's presenter, Colin Murray, who asked the Dark Lord if he would mind stop stuffing his face as his mastication was drowning out my answer. Naturally everyone collapsed laughing. The incident provoked a number of tweets to the programme and my own feed, the best of which was that 'Lord Mandelson is the kind of politician who slides up hill'.

He then proceeded to assert that the NIC increase could actually create jobs (no, really) on the basis that when they did it last time in 2002 employment went up the following year. I was having none of that and pointed out to Lord M that we weren't in a recession then, and that as the only one with a mic on who actually runs a business, if my cost base was added to in this manner it was more likely to encourage me to shed staff than employ new ones. He didn't have an answer to that.

Mandelson exuded total confidence in a display of languidness, the like of which you don't often see. He dismissed Sarah Teather as if she didn't exist. Indeed, he pretended he didn't know who she was at first.

What was noticeable today was that College Green was crawling with Labour politicians plus Vince Cable, Chris Huhne and Ming Campbell. The only Shadow Cabinet members I saw in the two hours or so I was there were Messers Gove and Hague. I got a lot of airtime because there didn't seem to be many Tory politicians for the broadcasters to choose from. To be honest I wasn't comfortable with Teather and Mandelson as I felt an obligation to appear as if I were the official Tory spokesman. Fine, I can carry that off, but I'm far happier speaking for myself. Perhaps it's just as well that I'm not a candidate. If I keep telling myself that, one day I may even come to believe it!

To listen to the clip click HERE and scroll in 1 hr 24 mins. I also got a few minutes at the end 1 hr 57.


29 comments:

moorlandhunter said...

As usual, Mandleson the man who says he loves democracy and says to questioners when he is tackled on his points ‘Let me answer your point.’ But then he does everything to stop anyone else giving their opinion about politics.
Mandleson is a man obsessed with spin and he will do anything to stop opposing views being expressed.
He is a hatful man and I wonder why this unelected man is centre stage of Labour, even to the point that he appears to be the new Prime Minister.

Sen. C.R.O'Blene said...

One of the oldest tricks in golf that Iain!

Shurely you've read 'The Art of Coarse Golf' by Michael Green!

He calls it 'The Sweets of Damocles', when you rattle a tin of sweets just as your opponent is driving off!

You hold the tin of hard red sweets, pretend not to open them, but, he knows that you may, just may rattle them at the crucial moment!

Distraction politics ...

Jim Arnott said...

The Conservatives really have to concentrate hard on Mandelson. He is Labour's Achilles heel. I don't know of any politician who is more despised than Mandelson.

Unknown said...

It didn't go unnoticed that BBC News 24 had a string of useless leftie politicians on all day, I just assumed it was the BBC's typical approach to 'balance'.

The only Tory I saw was Anne Widdicombe and she got about 2 minutes along with some Labour bint.

Alcuin said...

Teather is also a notorious interrupter, just like Mandy - carping and talking over other contributors. BBC chairmen are very poor at shutting such people up.

May I suggest, Iain, that you put aside your good manners, and, as politics is war by other means, apply a dictum of Sun Tzu: "If your enemy is of a choleric disposition, seek to irritate him". So next time you are on with Mandy, call him "Mandy" - he hates it. Or even "Mandy Pandy", as on Spitting Image.

The Purpleline said...

Iain most pressing question, what flavour were the crisps?

Also a more personal question did you find him sexually attractive being so close to danger in the flesh

Jaz said...

Iain, you did very well!

I seriously think CCHQ should think about hiring you for the election...

Anonymous said...

I think you have had a foretaste of what is to come. Any "debates" will be just Labour spewing out some meaningless rubbish and then attempting to drown out any Tory.

David Cameron had it exactly right at the start of his speech tonight in Leeds. Labour will attack the Tories and have only two positive things to propose - That they were right on the economy in the recession and they have a world class, respected and experienced leader in Gordon Brown.

Cameron was then quite effective in demolishing both. I would add that, by my calculation, around half of the forecast debt in 2014 – an eye-watering £1400 billion – will be down to the financial decisions taken by Gordon Brown as Chancellor. Less than 20% will be down to impact of the world recession. Then there is the hidden debt on PFI contracts. In all Brown will be bequeathing the Nation at least £60bn of additional costs per annum. This is why he has damaged public services for a generation. The substantiation of this claim is on my blog.

Anonymous said...

BBC is worried that their license money will be distributed to help other channels and brining in highspeed broadband when Tories win.
With Labour they are in a comfort zone.

More Mandy appearance means more voters for Tories. Mandy is so much despised and he and Campbell should be encouraged to appear more.!

Tories should keep a number of their shadow cabinet members in reserve.

As for Teather, she never had a proper job in her life before this.

jailhouselawyer said...

Were they Walker's crisps?

Tapestry said...

good effort by Dale.

No one else can stand the stench in the studio sitting alongside such trash.

They weren't crisps. They were fried foreskins freshly flown in from Tel Aviv. Mandy can't get enough.

Stephen Folan said...

I think he lifted the idea of the crisps from 'Rumpole of the Bailey'. Shame he hasn't the wit to make his case for the defence.

John said...

Absolute genius from Lord M. Were they beefy Iain?

Not a sheep said...

I have seen Mandelson so many times talk over joint interviewees or indulge in activities to distract the viewers' eyes whilst he is not talking that it is time someone 'called' him on it. Ken Clarke has come the closest to doing so so far...

happyuk said...

Chewing a mouthful of crisps while people were trying to talk? What an ignorant man. Sums him perfectly.

miko said...

I already feel as though the weight,the sheer menace and never-ending drudgery of Brown and his thugs is being lifted from me.

4 weeks to go and he will be thrown out along with his creeps.

I have a spring in my step,hope in my heart and am whistling tunes during the day.

Whoever wins the election,it won’t be this charlatan.

And we shall emerge as a nation from the darkness of Brown,to walk – blinking – into sunlit uplands.

Anonymous said...

@Jaz: "Iain, you did very well!

I seriously think CCHQ should think about hiring you for the election..."

Amen! If CCHQ have any sense they should do it asap. I will send an e-mail message..

Anonymous said...

Willy Whitelaw describes using this trick to put off his opponent in I think one of the Thatcher biogs. He used a coughing fit. Mandleslug is ever more vile in my view.

Glyn H said...

If I were Mandelson I would ignore Miss Teather.

Even if you are not an official Conservative spokesman perhaps you can get stuck into the Potemkin village that is the edifice of Mr Browns management ability at the Treasury and as Prime Minister.

The Official Opposition has failed to do so over the last 10 years.

For example: What about these stories of £7b of ministerial pledges for spending in Labour marginals made in recent weeks; including the RNOH Stanmore? (Which is a splendid institution and its neglect a disgrace – my point is the sudden change of heart when its director threatened to stand against the oafish and troughing McNulty).

Labour centred partisan spending over the last 13 years (saving the rump of Northern Rock for example or) is little different from Mugabes grab of the Marange diamond mine in Zimbabwe where his henchmen have stolen the mine for their personal enrichment, depriving its legitimate owner and also depriving the Zimbabwe government of any benefit as millions of dollars of diamonds are illegally exported.

DespairingLiberal said...

I thought Mandy was utterly appalling on Radio 4 at lunchtime - the man is entirely devoid of shame or the capacity for self-reflection. "Dark Lord" is not a bad epithet for him as he clearly has such contempt for the brainpower of the electorate that Sauron the Deceiver himself might have been proud to have him on board at Barad Dur.

On a lighter note, hilarious watching Michael Crick trying to talk to Brown this evening on Newsnight - I can see Crick getting roughed up as things go on and more heated.

How depressing though that the Washup has left Wright's Select Committee reforms dumped - this after all those promises that they would be implemented. Is this the result of agreement betweeen the Tories and Labour? If so, it points a finger at the alleged Change your party is talking about Iain - where's the Change if it's going to be Executive power as usual in the post-election H 0f C? The reforms were one of the few genuine glimmers of increased democratic accountability.

Yet the bizarre communications bill is still being railroaded through - demonstrating yet again that commercial interests are considered more important now than democracy in the UK.

Robert said...

It comes as no surprise that there were no Conservative Shadow Cabinet members around to put out the 'message'. After all this is David Cameron's Conservative Party, not theirs and certainly not mine any longer.

Still when he fails to get an overall majority they can all dump him like Major, Haig, Duncan Smith and Howard

Anonymous said...

Eating junk food on day 1 of the campaign - he'll be knackered by May 6th.

Barnacle Bill said...

How rude of the man, just goes to show you can't make a silk purse out of a pig's ear.
As my old grandmother used to say, "Manners maketh the man."

Roger Thornhill said...

Just be thankful it was not a lollypop...

DespairingLiberal said...

Cameron's speech in Leeds featured an attractive blonde "member of the public" girl standing just behind and to the right of him. Astonishingly, she was also standing behind and in camera on the Thames Embankment an hour earlier. She must have her own helicopter! And what a complete co-incidence that she happens to be young, blonde and good looking and at the front in full camera view! Amazing!

Barry said...

How can an unelected man talk about democracy? he seems to think that he has a God given right to rule over us.Will nobody have go at him about his status; how he was removed from government twice and that now he has the gall to lecture us.

PIENOMICS said...

Mandelson tries to present himself as a modern metrosexual type (whatever that really means).

I have always thought he was totally lacking in class.'Class' by the way has nothing to do with where you were born.

It's all to do with manners and showing respect for others.

In 1997 Blair and Mandelson chirped that 'things could only get better'. Well, they have for them.

Mandelson is booted out of the Cabinet twice, gets smoothed into a high paying number with the EU and then gets 'ermine'.

As for Tone, he has built up a large property portfolio and reportedly has 20 mil in the bank.

Yes, it has got better for them. Just a shame the rest of us have taken a kicking.

That's the New Labour project for you.

Do as I say not as I do!

Martin S said...

Not that he did that on purpose...

wv = tospec

................................. said...

"Perhaps it's just as well that I'm not a candidate. If I keep telling myself that, one day I may even come to believe it!"

It's bewildering that you didn't get a seat. What on earth did you do wrong in the selection meetings?!