Is Mandy running the Government?

[Gromit]

Lord Mandelson, First Secretary of State, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and Lord President of the Council is a busy chap. He is now a member of 35 key Cabinet committees.

That's more than the PM, the Chancellor, or Foreign Secretary.

He is on 80% of Cabinet Committees and has an input on policy on everything from swine flu to the Olympics, climate change to Afghanistan.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/pol itics/5882622/Lord-Mandelsons-empire-35-Cabine t-committee-posts.html

All that power, yet no one has ever elected him.

Does it matter as long as he is doing a good job (assuming he is)?

[anotheoldgit]

Love him or hate him, at least he is a politician who seems to earn his money.

He would make a better PM than Brown, and we didn't elect him either.

[jno]

nobody has ever elected a PM, not even Saint Margaret. MPs in the most successful party elect their own leader, that's all. Mandelson was elected in his day; but Brown is so in awe of his PR skills that he thinks if Mandy is allowed to run everything, then Brown will be returned to office. This is mistaken.

[Kromovaracun]

For a second, I thought the title was 'Is Maddy running the Government?'

It produced a rather odd effect.

[naomi24]

Yes, he is running the government - and yes, it does matter. I think jno is right. Brown never was, and never will be, fit for office - and he knows it.

[olddutch]

Agree with Naomi and Jno - Mandy has been running the show since he was brought back from lucrative exile and rehab in Brussels - but for all his gov management behind the scenes(and in front of them) since he arrived back Noo Labour is in as big a Mess as it ever was. Mandy is loving running the country as Browns Puppeteer, making loads of dosh, heightening is celebrity status, promoting selling us down the river to Brussels and helping his protege Tory Blur (tony blair) towards EU Presidency - Sooner the freak show ends the better !

[sag]

What's the betting he'll resign his peerage ( A new law out this week!) and become the next leader of the Labour party.

[naomi24]

Well if were ever to happen, sag, we can only hope that, come the next election, people will remember his previous history.

[Prudentia]

He is the diarohea of politics and may it destroy him as he lives and corrupts everything he toucthes

[vivisere]

Twice kicked out of government yet he is what this struggling Labour gov resorts to ! tells it all

[Prudentia]

the tosspot coudnt run a tap.

[naomi24]

Got it in one, vivisere.

[Androcles]

His offence over his loan from Robinson and his subsequent omission of telling the building society in his mortgage application this, would have got any of us charged with deception. As a politician he got away with it. Is that the kind of PM we need?

[Gromit]

Mandelson is First Secretary of State, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Lord President of the Council and daily advisor to Gordon Brown.

He also sits on the following Cabinet committees:
National Economic Council
Better Regulation
Democratic Renewal Council
Domestic Policy Council (which he deputy chairs)
Domestic Affairs
Borders and Migration
Communities and Equalities
Food
Families, Children and Young People
Health and Wellbeing
Justice and Crime
Local Government and the Regions (which he chairs)
Public Engagement and the Delivery of Services
Life Chances
Talent and Enterprise
Economic Development
Environment and Energy
Housing, Planning and Regeneration
Olympic and Paralympic Games
Productivity, Skills and Employment
Constitution
National Security, International Relations and Development
Europe
Overseas and Defence
Africa
Afghanistan and Pakistan
Trade
Protective Security and Resilience
Public Services and Public Expenditure
Public Sector Pay and Pensions
Pandemic Influenza Planning
Post Office Network (which he chairs)
Flood planning
PM's ad hoc Committee on International Climate Change
PM's ad hoc International Climate Change Negotiations.

After all that, does it matter that he is closing Downing Street's curtains while Brown is up the road in Cumbria.