You have to laugh at the cheek of Mandelson. His memoir The Third Man: Life at the Heart of New Labour is out tomorrow and Guido will be providing full excerpts here on the blog from over-the-paywall.  Mandy is clearly enjoying himself…

When Rawnsley’s The End of the Party book came out in January on the heels of Peter Watt’s Inside Out and the allegations of Prime Mentalism committed by Gordon Brown were again denied, Guido predicted that Labour Will Have a Khrushchev Moment of Truth in the End:

When Brown has gone after the election it seems inevitable that we will eventually have a Khrushchev moment, where a senior Labour figure articulates what everyone knows.  It will be devastating.  Gordon Brown is a malevolent, deeply damaged and unpleasant human being.  He is at the centre of a culture of political bullying that has been unhealthy for the Labour Party and the government.  The loyalist cabal around him are unpleasant people who have no place in a healthy political culture, they are as secretive and malicious as they are vindictive and vicious.

Gordon Brown was often compared to Stalin, but who will be Labour’s senior Krushchev figure who condemns the previous regime? Mandelson has laid to rest any continuing pretence (if there was any) about the TeeBeeGeeBees, the vicious infighting that paralysed Whitehall for a decade, yet was denied on camera in barefaced lying by Labour politician after Labour politician, including Mandelson. Mandelson is getting all the coverage for his book The Third Man highlighting the failings of Gordon Brown. Less focus is on David Miliband, Mandelson’s new protege gave a speech yesterday that comes near to that Krushchev moment

I agreed completely with Gordon Brown, when he became Prime Minister in 2007, that we needed renewal.  I supported and voted for him.  I agreed that we needed greater moral seriousness and less indifference to the excesses of a celebrity drenched culture.  I agreed with him when he said that we needed greater coherence as a government, particularly in relation to child poverty and equality.  I agreed with him on the importance of party reform and a meaningful internationalism that would be part of a unified government strategy.  I agreed that we needed a civic morality to champion civility when confronting a widespread indifference to others. But, it didn’t happen. It was not just more of the same.  Far from correcting them failings – tactics, spin, high-handedness – intensified; and we lost many of our strengths – optimism born of clear strategy, bold plans for change and reform, a compelling articulation of aspiration and hope.  We did not succeed in renewing ourselves in office; and the roots of that failure were deep not recent, about procedure and openness, or lack of it, as much as policy.  That is a political fact and now words are cheap but the stakes are high.

It was a backhanded condemnation of Brown’s failure. If David Miliband wants Labour to move on, a frank, uncoded, reflection on the period of Labour brutalism is required. Brown was a disaster for the Labour Party and the country, if Miliband wants a reborn Labour Party he first has to bury Brown in the truth.

UPDATE : Punters give David Miliband a 63% chance of being the next Labour leader.

Instead of sending us to Sion Simon’s Swiss Viagra supplier, Labour-Uncut actually had an intriguing little snippet yesterday. It won’t get as much coverage as Liam Byrne’s letter to David Laws,nevertheless for those interested, Mandelson’s letter to his successor apparently simply stated “don’t let them break this department up.”

Wishful thinking perhaps for the huge counter-productive Whitehall empire that Mandy acquired. The Treasury has its cross-hairs firmly pointed at  the Department for Business Innovation and Skills, now in the equally slippery hands of Vince Cable. With the largest chunk of cuts coming their way, Mandy’s last wish looks unlikely to be granted.

During the election campaign Guido’s inbox was red hot with press releases, up to some 50 a day.  Yesterday saw not a single press release from any party.

Mandelson having engineered the relatively painless demise of Brown is now quietly inching towards putting Miliband into Downing Street, with the support of the LibDems, in exchange for perpetual representation and all we are seeing from the Tories in response is the deployment of Michael Gove around broadcasting studios.  Gove is merely spreading sweet reasonableness around the studios whilst Mandelson is manipulating events behind the scenes.

The Tories need to put their case to the people directly before Mandelson succeeds in trying to put together a government of all the losers. They should:

• Bang on that a coalition of celtic fringe parties would demand that England took the burden of public expenditure cuts whilst they kept their sovietised state-dominated economies intact.
• Nail LibDems for trying to get electoral reform without reference to the electorate.
• Shout about the narrow self-interest of the parties claiming to be acting in the national interest.

There is of course the possibility that Mandelson knows that a majority cannot be sewn together from the rag-tag of parties he is lining up and is merely arranging affairs to further the advance of Miliband.  With David Miliband as Labour leader Mandelson could rule by proxy as regent. 

This after all is Mandleson we are talking about…

Mike Smithson reminds us that 313 MPs signed Gordon’s nomination papers 3 years ago today, they didn’t hold a competitive election, they didn’t have a debate in which Gordon would be tested and expected to make his case – a weakness clearly visible in the TV debates.*  Guido said at the time they would rue the day.

Like lemmings they followed Gordon and he will lead them over the edge to electoral oblivion. Yesterday the news channels were full of Labour frontbenchers looking constipated with pain, even accomplished TV performers like Andy Burnham couldn’t find a way to spin it – Gordon had just unfairly and without reason called a Labour voter, with legitimate worries, a bigot.  Neither Mandelson, Campbell or Maguire could find a way to put a positive spin** on it, our Kevin seems to have thrown in the towel.

They knew Gordon had just guaranteed Labour activists hell to come on the doorstep.

Steve Richardson, a long-time apologist for Brown, writes in the Indy this morning

Goodness knows what is going on in Brown’s exhausted mind when he makes these wholly misjudged, angry exclamations. We can only guess… the mystery at the heart of yesterday’s drama. Why was Brown so angry in the first place?

Gordon was angry because he is a malevolent weirdo, unable to relate people like a normal human being, unable to interpret the emotional signals and body language that we all do instinctively.  He is a bonkers, not like an eccentric old aunt, but like a dangerously paranoid political psychopath. Privately aides were grateful yesterday that he hadn’t launched into a foul mouthed tirade or hit anything other than the car “it could have been worse” they were saying yesterday. The voters have now heard a little of the real Gordon, they won’t find it attractive.

*Punters on Political Smarkets currently rate tonight’s TV debate winner probabilities Clegg 54%, Cameron 52%, Brown 12%.

**For a while Mandelson and Whelan tried to blame the Murdoch press / Sky News.  When that didn’t work they Mandelson dropped out of view. Whelan and Prescott, in what is pretty disgraceful lying, are now claiming Mrs Duffy is bought and paid for by Lord Bell and the Sun.  It is as if Damian McBride had never gone away…

Guido’s co-conspirators are everywhere – this came in overnight from San Francisco:

To: guido.fawkes@order-order.com
Date: Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 11:37 PM
Subject: Philip Gould in San Francisco airport

Guido – I’m in the BA lounge at SFO and the guy next to me was receiving some attention. I didn’t recognise him so I ogled his boarding pass. It says “Gould Philip Lord” and I do at least recognise his name. Anyway, he’s not as discreet as he could be. He’s just emailing peter mandelson and I could get a read of the message if I had more balls. Listening to him speak, though, he openly said to someone that he was worried by the polls. He thinks that Labour & Libdems will gradually sink, leaving things clear for Tories. Hoping so…

I’ll email more if he stays indiscreet.

And another email reached the inbox a little later…

To: guido.fawkes@order-order.com
Date: Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 11:41 PM
Subject: Philip Gould in San Francisco airport

He got an upgrade to first class and is now in seat 01A. He says he “feels so guilty about this first class thing”. He just bought 3 boxes of chocolate covered macadamia nuts.

IP tracing confirms the email was sent from California. Guido suspects Gould and Mandelson’s real game now is to make Miliband leader with Mandelson as the Dark Prince Regent…

UPDATE : Just realised Lord Gould will still be mid-Atlantic and won’t know about this until he lands.

Peter Mandelson is becoming increasingly irritated with the unions stranglehold on Labour Party candidate selection process. Funnily enough they keep turning up their nose up at his friends. He has been looking for a safe seat for one of them since 2007 and Downing Street are pushing hard for control of the race to succeed outgoing Labour MP (and Old Etonian) Mark Fisher.

Guido isn’t sure a name like the Hon. Tristram Hunt is going to go down with the Unite paymasters never mind the voters of Stoke-on-Trent…

There is a certain irony in Lord Mandelson discussing who is and is not suitable for a seat in the House of Lords. Does he really want to go down this route? No wonder the Lords Authorities say they can’t investigate. Has anyone suggested Ashcroft has broken the law? Has Ashcroft been involved in dodgy mortgage cover-ups, shady passport deals with donors and made his millions on the gravy train?

Mandy just told a press conference that “we’ve seen no evidence of bullying in Number 10.” He is on the attack and spinning away. Perhaps though he should have reconsidered his choice of words given the fact Tom Watson told the House in March 2009:

“I can confirm that in the period specified (2007-2009), there were fewer than five cases in the Department where staff were disciplined for bullying and harassment of colleagues. It would not be appropriate to provide a further breakdown.”

So there have been confirmed cases, while Gordon was PM, that were investigated. Sounds like evidence of bullying no?

Last month a co-conspirator in Mandy’s Department of Innovation, Business and Skills sent in a picture of this sign that was guiding mandarins to a training seminar on how to deal with tricky questions. Another co-conspirator put in an FOI request that has revealed the taxpayer coughed up to the tune of £24,985.36 to teach 44 Executive Officers, Higher Executive Officers and Senior Executive Officers how to avoid answering a straight question from the public through a days role-play.

Seems the department weren’t quite up there with Mandy’s forked tongue skills.