Gordon Brown does a nice job of grabbing the headlines with Peter Mandelson’s return to the Cabinet as Business Secretary. It’s hard to divine what this means for the European Commission. Catherine Ashton will take his place as Trade Commissioner and there’s nothing in her background that indicates that she’s as ready as Mandy was to push the WTO negotiations to the point of irritating the EU’s agriculture-intensive states. In any event, trade has slipped down the list of headlines with the global financial crisis and Mandy has a well-timed opinion piece in the Guardian that clearly crosses into Charlie McCreevy’s banking regulation turf, so it was likely drafted with one eye already on the next job.  In fact, the kind of protectionism that used to draw concern on trade issues has, at least in an intra-EU context, shifted to finance with banking guarantees and bailouts. As much as anything, Mandelson probably saw better of waiting around another year to push through a trade deal that no one cares about right now. But can he keep out of trouble in the new job?
A Fistful Of Euros
European Opinion
So Mandelson’s been an MP for four years while working as commissioner in Brussels? Isn’t that odd?
No he resigned as MP. He has to be appointed to House of Lords to get back into Cabinet.
I don’t think Ashton will get trade. Won’t Barroso shift things around. She knows next to nothing about the EU. Even Richard Corbett MEP could think of nothing more constructive to say about her contribution to European politics than that “she is very ambiable”. Lovely.
It’ll be interesting to see if Mandelson tries to return to the Commons; I presume he still wants to be prime minister (and this has just got more realistic) and you can’t realistically be PM in the Lords these days.
FYI, having links about 3 shades different from body text and using on-mouse-over underlining makes for an unreadable website.
The public has such a low expectation of politicians these days that their financial and personal exploits just elicit yawns. The politicians are just scroungers looking after themselves, and that is how they are perceived by the public. Blair and Mandelson are held in such disdain, that mention either name at any gathering of working class people and you would thing someone just walked in something rather smelly. The public perception is that all the politicians are lining their own pockets in the expectation that they will retire overseas asap with generous lump sums and pensions and leave the UK in the mire.
Brown is considered a bumbler by most people. Well meaning, but his ambition enabled Tony Blair to slither away to the USA, washing his hands as he went out the door and handed over to Brown. Brown needs to speak up about what he inherited. As for Mandelson, why hasnt there been an investigation into his expenses. The general suspicion is that he is naturally such a slimeball, an analysis would see him out of circulation for some time. Between Thatcher, Blair and Mandelson, aided by corrupt politicians and bankers, the country is ruined and will probably never recover. We have no manufacturing base, our financial industry is a joke around the world, all we seem to do is invest in property, both in the UK and overseas and hope that the Americans, Asians and other European countries will somehow lift us out of the bog we have created.