Mandelson

 I was going to do a post on Peter Mandelson but really this morning I can't be bothered.  However this is a little snippet that I wish to pass on about him which says probably not very much except his heritage is that of Labour.  

I will leave you with a couple of facts that are of interest to me.  They are probably not of interest to anybody else.

Mandelson is the grandson of Herbert Morrison, Labour MP and member of the government war cabinet during the war and government minister post war years.  He was not thought suitable to be selected as leader of the Labour Party because of his volatile and argumentative nature at the time, especially argumentative with Nye Bevan,  and so Attlee was chosen as the preferred leader and later PM thought to be a more stable and suitable person to lead the Labour Party.   Morrison was a member of Attlee's cabinet. 

Morrison had an affair with married MP Ellen Wilkinson, cabinet minister and trade unionist, inspired by Russians and one time member of the Communist Party.  She died in somewhat mysterious circumstances after an overdose of barbiturates but death was given as accidental.  She was at the time Minister of Education. 

Ellen Wilkinson is the chosen picture on the wall behind Rachel Reeves in her office after she removed that of Nigel Lawson.  

That's all but I remember picking this up from Attlee's biography a few years back and the figure of Herbert Morrison interested me.  Now his grandson is of much interest to the British public.  And of course the Blair's Britain that I talk about is the Mandelson Britain because Blair looked up to Mandelson and thought the sun shone out of him and would do nothing without him.  New Labour was Mandelson.  I wonder what Blair's take is now on his great and trusted friend.  

So I have written a little about Mandelson after all.