“It’s the New Labour comeback tour,” said Rachel Sylvester in The Times. Gordon Brown has assembled the old stars for “one last turn”. Peter Mandelson is back in the Cabinet, Margaret Beckett has been rehired as “backing vocalist” and Blair’s widely loathed former spin doctor, Alastair Campbell, is now at his side. The “twice-sacked” David Blunkett also looks set for a return to the stage, and even John Prescott is “waddling onto the fringes of this motley crew of has-beens”, said Trevor Kavanagh in The Sun. They may be bickering backstage, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Observer, but Brown probably reckons it is worth it if they can get the “crowd back on its feet again”.
Brown’s decision to resurrect Lord Mandelson to the cabinet for an “unprecedented third time” was a risky decision, but was essentially about survival – both economic and political – said Andrew Rawnsley, also in The Observer. The close friendship between the men was soured 14 years ago when Mandelson backed Blair for the leadership over Brown, and the two men have been conducting a “titanic feud” ever since. But the “permafrost” between them began to thaw when they saw each other in action during the recent world trade talks and were reminded of each other’s respective skills. Mandelson’s stint as EU Trade Commissioner has been generally admired and he was always highly rated as a departmental head by the officials who worked for him in Northern Ireland and at the DTI. Brown was “not dissimulating” when he spoke of Mandelson’s “immense experience and expertise”: he has been talking to Mandelson about his domestic predicament since the spring. Mandelson does have an excellent reputation, said Matthew Parris in The Times, and the appointment will certainly “reassure the City and bring to the front bench in the Lords a wily and dogged advocate of New Labour’s Blairite compact with the rich and the wealth creators”.
The other advantage of the resurrection of “Labour’s own Lord Voldemort” is that it has blocked any cabinet insurrection against Brown from the Blairites, said Hinsliff. It has also “recaptured the political momentum from the Tories”. Labour is closing in, agreed Polly Toynbee in The Guardian, but Brown’s astonishing reshuffle doesn’t amount to a “renewed sense of political direction or purpose”. His 1997 tribute band is “out of tune” with these transformed times. “There is still no big picture to help voters understand what’s happening or what has to be done from now on and why.” Brown and Darling appear to have “learned to man the fire extinguishers competently” (the Guardian’s ICM poll earlier this week shows that 55% of voters think Brown has handled the crisis well), but the recession will have to drag on for some time to determine whether Labour will be “seen as saviour or villain”.
Brown’s dramatic reshuffle has “left the Labour party no more secure than it was three weeks ago” and his appointments risk creating disharmony, said Rachel Sylvester in The Times. Many of the key players, including Campbell and Charlie Whelan (who also returns), disagree on crucial issues. Of them all, Mandelson was the most dangerous choice, said Parris. Brown’s old enemy may not be plotting now, but there is little doubt that a general election which sees Brown washed lifeless onto the riverbank, will leave Mandelson happily afloat.