Peter Mandelson

Peter Benjamin Mandelson, Baron Mandelson (born 21 October 1953) is a British Labour politician, president of international think tank Policy Network and Chairman of strategic advisory firm Global Counsel. He served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Hartlepool from 1992 to 2004, and held a number of Cabinet positions under Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He was also the European Commissioner for Trade between 2004 and 2008.

Peter Mandelson

Quotes

• Before this campaign started, it was said that I was facing political oblivion, my career in tatters, apparently never to be part of political life again. Well they underestimated Hartlepool and they underestimated me, because I am a fighter and not a quitter!

  My political opponents can have their pound of flesh, and they do, but they will not eat into of my beliefs, what I stand for and have done in politics. That is the inner steel in me.

  • Jason Beattie, Jon Hibbs, "Triumphant Mandelson hails new Labour victory", Scotsman, 8 June 2001, p. 5.
  • Acceptance speech after re-election as MP for Hartlepool in the 2001 General Election.

• Bashar is an intelligent and cultured individual who, having lived and studied in London, wanted to show off his perfect English (unfortunately I did not meet his English wife); but also because, like so many leaders of his type and generation, he is looking for a fresh paradigm for his country that will rescue it from economic backwardness without plunging it into political chaos. Hu Jintao, visiting London this week from China, could tell an identical story.
  • 1 November 2001 The Independent

• No serious challenge on the Left exists to Third Way thinking anywhere in the world. This is hardly surprising as globalisation punishes hard any country that tries to run its economy by ignoring the realities of the market or prudent public finances. In this strictly narrow sense, and in the urgent need to remove rigidities and incorporate flexibility in capital, product and labour markets, we are all "Thatcherite" now.
  • "There's plenty of life in the 'new' Third Way yet", The Times, 10 June 2002, p. 16.

• Apart from the fact that I am not actually Jewish, I wear my father's parentage with pride.
  • 2003, responding to comments by Tam Dalyell

• In 2004 when as a Labour government, we were not only welcoming people to come into this country to work, we were sending out search parties for people and encouraging them, in some cases, to take up work in this country.
  • 14 May 2013 statements at the Daily Mail.

Quotations about Peter Mandelson

• The Lord Mandelson, denied the opportunity to become Foreign Secretary by the sad combination of a Prime Minister too weak to remove his Foreign Secretary and, equally, a Foreign Secretary too weak to challenge the Prime Minister, has gone around instead collecting titles and even whole Departments to add to his name. His title now adds up to, “The right hon. the Baron Mandelson of Foy in the county of Herefordshire and Hartlepool in the county of Durham, First Secretary of State, Lord President of the Privy Council and Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills”. It would be no surprise to wake up in the morning and find that he had become an archbishop! That is exactly what happened with Cardinal Wolsey.
  • William Hague Hansard, 10 Jun 2009, House of Commons: Column 871.