PC 1: Tony's Cronies

[Dame Evelyn Redgrave]

I welcome the willingness of Labour MPs to work on a solution to the standard of public appointments and to look at how we can achieve a merit-based system for such roles.

I also welcome the constructive efforts of Sir Jack Anderson in his offer to write to Sir Nigel Wicks in a call for further scrutiny on the wider issue.

I would disagree with one part of his remarks, however, namely in that I do believe as Chair of the Treasury Select Committee, he has a special responsibility to hold this government to account on such an appointment. Hundreds of millions of pounds, paid by the taxpayer, was spent on the development of the Dome over the past few years and undoubtedly millions more will be spent in future, now under the stewardship of Mr Mandelson, and therefore it is only right and proper that Sir Jack should take a continued interest for however long he remains as Chairman.

But again, whilst I welcome the willingness of Labour MPs to work on public appointments, I would remind most of them of the first part of our motion, namely the condemnation of Mandelson’s appointment. To try and avoid the question of Mandelson whilst calling for a change in the process of public appointments does not work.

We’ve seen Labour MPs willing to take some steps but frankly, we already know a lot about Mr Mandelson’s conduct in previous public offices and his previous management of the Dome, both of which were widely accepted to have been sorely lacking.

Ultimately, we cannot have confidence in Peter Mandelson as CEO of the New Millennium Experience and Labour must join the Conservatives in strongly condemning this appointment and calling for his removal.

[Will Frost]

I find it very interesting that Labour MPs seem willing to talk about everything other than the matter at hand: how they plan on voting on the Opposition's Motion. The Labour Party is more than willing to make allegations of cronyism in the last Conservative Government, ignoring the fact that they have been in power for four years and have done nothing to address them problem. They are more than willing to condemn corruption, ignoring the fact that their leader engages in precisely the behavior they are condemning. But when it comes to simply taking a stance on the motion, and telling the British people that they are willing to criticize the Prime Minister when he is objectively in the wrong, they are entirely silent.

If the Labour Party is incapable of calling out cronyism within their own ranks, and making the obvious and simple admission that Peter Mandelson is not qualified for the office he holds, then they will never be trusted to treat this insidious promise seriously.

[Sir Dylan Macmillan]

The sheer volume of Labour MPs lining up to defend their boss and his Prince of Darkness from very serious corruption accusations should tell you all you need to know about the New Labour approach to sleaze. The Prime Minister and Mr Mandelson have not only brought great shame upon themselves but also upon the Cabinet, caused a civil service resignation, and have brought in to question every single other appointment made by the Prime Minister in the last four years. I welcome that Labour MPs are waking up to the fact that things must change, but until they accept that their own golden goose and his political mates are the chief offenders and demand that resignations occur the public will never be able to take them seriously as a credible force against corruption.

[Sir Dylan Macmillan]

The Labour defence amounts to "don't blame us, blame the system" and that's fine, it is good that the system is examined and tightened and that those who abuse it are held to account for their abuses. But while the chief abusers remain in power, while they dictate the terms of review, and while they are in charge of delivering the new system the Labour Party has no credibility whatsoever on this issue. That is why the Conservative Party have presented a motion that condemns a chief public facing abuser of the system and calls for a new system grounded in merit over political patronage to replace it. I urge Labour to put down the politics and vote for this motion as the first step to regaining the public's trust on the issue of corruption.

[Sir Jack Anderson]

I spoke in the House today raising my concerns about the government's appointment of Peter Mandelson, how this raises legitimate concerns from the public and about my action to ensure we get the full facts of this case so we can make a reasoned judgment.

The Opposition appear to have called a guilty verdict without collecting all of the evidence, however, and are hoping in getting Members of this House to declare their verdict they can achieve a 'gotcha' moment. Worse, they have levelled accusations of corruption against other Parliamentarians without any evidence: such accusations would not be allowed in the House, and I see no reason why they are appropriate outside of it.

My vote on the motion will be entirely dependent on the full facts as reported by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and I hope other Members of Parliament are interested in evidence and reason over politics and pettiness. I understand politics is a necessary element of our system, particularly from frontbenchers, but let us hope we can see more concern for the national interest and truly creating an accountable state the public can trust going forwards.

[Clarice Ashbridge]

Have just spoken in the House in debate over yet another government scandal, and yet another one involving Mr Mandelson. With Blair sending his most loyal cabinet ministers to jump on the Mandy hand grenade after intentionally pulling the pin for the third time in the last five years, it really does beg the question of why he's allowing this culture of cronyism to continue. He let Peter Mandelson back into the Cabinet after scandal before, and now he has appointed him in charge of a failed project he was fully responsible for, after sacking the woman the two of them had themselves appointed. It would be comical if it didn't betray the fact

When he was first elected in 1997, Tony Blair was riding on a wave of hope and optimism which was partly based on a pledge against corruption. The fact his party dropped almost 80 seats in the last election tells you all you need to know about how people feel about him now. I wonder how much further we can go...

[Will Frost]

Jack Anderson is wrong when he says that the Conservative party has declared Tony Blair and Mandelson guilty of cronyism without any proper evidence. The truth is, the evidence pointing to just how wrong this appointment was is absolutely overwhelming. If Sir Jack needs to see the evidence, then let's go ahead and show it to him.

Peter Mandelson already had a stint in a role overseeing the Dome project. His tenure was viewed as an abject failure, and he was accused of, "running the project like a dictator." Despite the plethora of information suggesting Mandelson was not qualified to serve in this position, the Prime Minister has decided to appoint him once again.

Outside of this specific role, Mr. Mandelson has a long track history of accusations of using public office in pursuit of personal ambitions and goals. His time in Government is riddled with allegations of inappropriate uses of power. And still, the Prime Minister has decided to appoint him once again.

And it's not as if the Government was unable to find a more qualified candidate. As Dame Evelyn said yesterday in the House, there is a long list of infinitely more qualified candidates from which the Government could have chosen. And still, the Prime Minister has decided to appoint Mandelson once again.

Peter Mandelson had no experience in this sort of work when he was first appointed, his first stint in the role was an abject failure, and his proceeding roles in Government were all marred by alleged ethics breaches. This man should not hold public office, but he does, because he is a friend of Tony Blair. The evidence exists, it is there for all Labour MPs to see, I simply wish that they had the courage to admit it.

[John Baker]

For all of this talk of New Labour and how they are forward thinking and bringing new ideas to Britain. I see a lot of looking into the past. It seems that the Labour party is happy to hold itself to the standard of Thatcher. For all New Labour's talk about being the future, they are obsessed with the past. It is a shame that we cannot work on reforms because the Labour party is worried about what happened years ago. Are we still in the 1980s? Or is it 2001? I'm more concerned with the problem at the moment and actually fixing it. Than trying to spend the next 4 years arguing whether cronyism is okay because Labour thinks Thatcher did it. The truth of the matter is that this is Mandelson's third job under Prime Minister Blair. I ask Labour are they more interested in creating the real change to this process, or are they going to be busy yelling, "But, but the Tories were being mean to us." If they want to help, I will be working than happy working with them.

[Sir Jack Anderson]

With respect to William Croft, when I say we do not have sufficient evidence to declare Peter Mandelson’s appointment inappropriate and I simply believe we should wait to hear back from the Committee of Standards in Public Life and he tells me we definitely have the evidence – because he was accused of one thing and there were allegations of others... that speaks exactly as to why we should wait for a more thorough analysis of the situation. I am not going to declare a guilty verdict off of accusations and allegations, and it would be silly for anybody else to.

[Sir Dylan Macmillan]

The problem with the Labour line is that Mr Mandelson has already been appointed to his post in the face of overwhelming evidence that he is unfit to hold such a position, so it is all well and good for Labour to declare that we must stop and think about this because they've already got all that they want from the transaction and can freely delay as much as they like. It is quite clear that Mr Mandelson should be taken away from proceedings, along with Mr Blair and the Cabinet, for a new independent process to take shape but nobody has the faintest belief that this will happen while the literal Prince of Darkness of New Labour and his boss sit presiding over those proceedings. Mr Mandelson must resign, if not as an MP then from his new position, and a genuinely independent system should be built up to prevent Tony's Cronies from ever being able to corruptly fail upwards in this manner again.