Kmflett's Blog

The centrality of Peter Mandelson to New Labour & New New Labour

Peter Mandelson was the star speaker at an event to mark 25 years of New Labour in 2022 and remained, until his resignation from the Labour Party on 1st February 2026, central to the New New Labour project as well. A catalogue of errors (and some achievements after 1997 and before the Iraq debacle).

The below appeared on the Politico site (2^nd May 2022) and while I’m doubtful about using single source references it is anyway entertaining even if perhaps not entirely accurate (it may not report all who were there for example).

It was held on a Sunday in a Wetherspoons in Chancery Lane, which is normally closed at weekends (the area is very quiet at that time). There was an irony in one of Tim Martin’s pubs hosting such an event but at least David Miliband who apparently picked up the bar bill won’t have been much out of pocket.

A pub is an odd place to hold an inclusive event in the 2020s (not that most pubs don’t welcome all but some have religious, cultural and personal reasons for swerving places that sell alcohol) but it was marking an event in 1997 when things were perhaps seen differently.

I’m not an expert on the factions of New Labour but it does appear to be the Blairite core (as opposed to Brownites) and some of its more recent successors and enforcers. There are a couple of people who were at one point in some way associated with the left- Byers and Milburn- before they became New Labourised.

Anyway one hopes that at least some of them are at work on their memoirs so future historians can ponder what it was they thought they were doing and what the actual results were.

SPOTTED: At Labour’s 25 Years since 1997 celebrations at the Knight Templar Pub on Chancery Lane last night … Speeches by Peter Mandelson … Cherie Blair and Nicky Blair … Nicky read Tony’s message “we knew how to have fun” … Mandy hailed “the best team that ever came together for politics” and chanted: “Viva New Labour” … Pat and Marianna McFadden were first on the dance floor to “Things Can Only Get Better” … Closely followed by Roy and Alicia Kennedy … Stella Creasy and Dan Fox … David Evans and Aline Delawa … Stephen Byers … Alan Milburn … Hilary Armstrong … Organizers Jo Gibbons, Julie McAndrew, Adrian McMenamin … Sam White from LOTO … Ex-Labour advisers: Steve Bates, Razi Rahman, Faz Hakim, John Lehal, Iain McNichol, Andy Bagnall, Jo Milligan, Martin Angus, John Watts … David Miliband paid for the drinks … Wes Streeting and Peter Kyle from the Shadow Cabinet … plus Keir Starmer comms chief Matt Doyle fresh from the Blair PPB.