Can someone please explain to me why Peter Mandelson keeps getting important jobs?

There are political comebacks, there are political collapses, and then there is the career of Peter Mandelson, a man who has spent three decades walking into rakes and then acting surprised when the handle hits him in the face.

Now, possibly, finally, the rake factory has closed. Probably thanks to deinstitutionalisation.

It appears that the Prince of Darkness, a nickname he wore with the relaxed ease of someone who quite enjoyed the darkness, may at last have found the one association even modern British politics can’t spin into a networking opportunity: his proximity to Jeffrey Epstein. When your social calendar starts to read like a Netflix true crime docuseries, the vibe shift is rarely positive.

Just a guy with an opinion

Now, I should stress: I am just a guy with an opinion. I do not sit on any appointment committees. I have never rifled through the Cabinet Office filing cabinet labelled “Senior Roles: Questionable Judgement.” I do not know the granular details of how Mandelson was given yet another job in public life.

I do know this: things explode around him with the reliability of a Michael Bay franchise. It is almost performance art at this point.

You hire Mandelson. There is a pause. Then there is a scandal. Then there is a resignation. Then, somehow, there is another job. It’s like watching someone repeatedly stick a fork in a toaster and insisting the electricity is biased against them. The truly impressive part is that anyone was still shocked.

Corbynite hysteria

Of course, criticism of Mandelson has long been filed under “Corbynite hysteria”, the political equivalent of shoving all awkward feedback into a drawer marked Woke Noise.

For years the script went like this: silly left-wing people dislike him; sensible grown-ups respect him. If you thought otherwise, you were probably knitting a Che Guevara tea cosy and drinking craft beer in Walthamstow.

This may not have been formally written down anywhere, but it was absolutely the vibe. And vibes, as we have learned in modern politics, are basically policy documents now.

Judgement, optics and patterns

Mandelson’s proximity to Morgan McSweeney, whose defining political hobby has been enthusiastically disliking the Labour left, only hardened that posture. Opposition to Mandelson wasn’t about judgement or optics or, you know, patterns. It was framed as tribal grievance. The wrong people disliked him, therefore he must be right.

This is what happens when your political identity is built primarily on being anti-Corbyn. You can rise very quickly on that energy. You can clear entire corridors of opponents with it. What you cannot do, apparently, is develop good judgement about anything else.

The only adults in the room

Now look. We are told Scottish Labour figures are muttering about leadership. They face a tough election in May. Third or fourth place is being whispered in the same tone normally reserved for medical diagnoses. Somewhere in the background is the faint echo of a question: was nearly detonating your premiership over Peter Mandelson really the hill to die on?

It is extraordinary. You finally secure power after years in the wilderness, and within months you’re flirting with self-sabotage because you couldn’t resist rehiring the man who’s CV reads like a cautionary tale.

This isn’t grand ideological tragedy. It’s bad politics. It’s poor risk assessment. It’s the kind of decision-making that suggests the inner circle believes they are the only adults in the room, and then proceeds to trip over the furniture.

Being vocally anti-Corbyn does not automatically confer strategic genius

The broader problem is this: when a political class rises by defining itself against an internal enemy, it becomes very good at factional combat and very bad at anything else. Winning the argument against the left is not the same as winning the country. Being vocally anti-Corbyn does not automatically confer strategic genius. Sometimes it just leaves you with Peter Mandelson and a fire alarm.

There will be more of this. That much feels certain. The era of “serious people making serious decisions” has turned out to involve a surprising amount of amateur hour. The public is watching a governing class that insists on its competence while repeatedly stepping on political landmines labelled in neon.

The end for Manselson?

If this is the end for Mandelson, and one hesitates, because he has the survival ability of a Bond villain, it will not be because of some grand ideological reckoning. It will be because, eventually, even British politics runs out of patience for reruns.

The Prince of Darkness may finally have discovered that the lights have been on the whole time, and this time, the rake might actually stick.