UK Labour set for re-election despite Mandelson

UK Labour set for re-election despite Mandelson
REUTERS

JAN 25: Peter Mandelson's shock departure from the British government should not derail Prime Minister Tony Blair's re-election drive, analysts said on Wednesday.

But the loss of Blair's most pro-European Minister may tip the scales against Britain swiftly joining Europe's single currency, something the premier backs in-principle.

Opinion polls put Blair 10 to 20 points ahead of opposition Conservatives. That lead may narrow after the resignation of Mandelson as Northern Ireland Secretary but electoral statistics show an opposition party should be well ahead in the polls in the run-up to an election to have a chance of taking government

Blair is expected to go to the country in May.

Bob Worcester, head of top pollsters MORI, stuck resolutely to his forecast of a 100-120 seat majority for Blair.

Blair's 179-seat win in 1997 -- a triumph that many analysts believe Mandelson masterminded -- was the largest majority in 150 years.

Worcester said Mandelson's departure might even be a bonus for Labour, saying his polling evidence suggested the public were not fans of the former arch spin doctor.

"It will be a momentary blip for Labour but in the end it is positive," Worcester told Reuters. "Blair should never have brought him back in the first place. This has lanced the boil."

Mandelson, 47, was forced to resign for the second time in three years after he became involved in a passport application by Indian business tycoon Srichand Hinduja and then failed to admit that he had intervened in person.

He first quit in 1998 after borrowing a large sum from ex-Minister and millionaire Geoffrey Robinson to buy a house. His department was investigating Robinson's business affairs at the time but Blair welcomed him back within a year.

John Curtice, political analyst at Strathclyde University, also thought Mandelson was unpopular with the public.

"In itself it is not a disaster for Labour," he said, but added that the party could not afford too many more slip-ups.

The government risks being tainted by sleaze, something that did much to bring down its Conservative predecessor in 1997.

"It certainly tarnishes the New Labour brand," said Dennis Kavanagh, professor of politics at Liverpool University.

Conservative leader William Hague tried to make instant capital, telling parliament that Blair himself had set the standards of spin, half truths and underhand dealings.

But the top-selling Sun

newspaper -- which switched from years of Conservative support to backing Blair in 1997 -- hinted it would continue to support Labour.

"We are talking about Peter Mandelson, we are not talking about New Labour," Sun

editor David Yelland said.

BROWN IN HOT SEAT

With the demise of the man credited with leading Labour's return to power after 18 years in the political wilderness, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown is now indisputably the number two in government.

The pair were set to run the re-election campaign together and Brown will rule on Britain's readiness to join the euro in the next parliament -- the biggest decision it faces.

Government sources say Brown has cooled on the single currency, fearing it will ruin his economic legacy.

"The person rubbing his hands with glee is Gordon Brown,"Kavanagh said. No love is lost between the two.

Worcester forecast the earliest Britain would sign up to the euro would be 2005 and only then if a narrow Labour victory forced a coalition with the minority Liberal Democrats who support greater involvement with Europe.

Polls show up to 70 per cent of Britons want to keep the pound.

Curtice was no more optimistic.

"The government is already in serious trouble on the euro. Many of us can't see how they can win a referendum on the euro anyway," he said.

"But if the chief protagonist, who might have been in the foreign office after the election, is gone, it certainly doesn't help."

DARK POLITICAL ARTS

For even many Labour MPs there was secret relief that theman who was blamed for much of the feuding within government circles, has left the Westminster stage.

Mandelson was a master of the unattributable briefing, theoff-the-record quote about colleagues. "Perhaps we can all get on now and pull in the same direction," one MP told Reuters.