I’m flabbergasted!
Not that The Liar has published memoirs: we knew they were coming. Nor the mindboggling arrogance of those memoirs (at least as reported): again that’s as expected. But the chattering classes once again seem to give them credence. Or at least, to believe that he believes them. I mean, good grief, haven’t we learned from all those years of bitter experience?
I’d sooner take the Prince of Darkness’s word on the history of New Labour. Obviously not at face value, but Mandelson seems the more interesting and less megalomaniac(!!!) of the two. Perhaps more to the point, Mandelson has some presence in the real world as opposed to his own pure fantasyland. Or for a spot of plain speaking, reconstruct fragments from the working-class mascot John Prescott: he’s not articulate enough to lie Blair-style, and what he says (where sufficiently coherent) is at least likely to be what he means. Prescott has already rubbished what Blair says about Brown: I guess he’s too honest to let that pass when the meeja asked him.
Interesting historic question: could Brown have made a competent leader, if he hadn’t been driven (quite literally) mad by being number two to The Liar? I mean, back in the 1990s: it was clear by about the time of the second Labour term (2001) that Brown’s grasp was failing in some matters, and in retrospect he was evidently already quite mad.
