Mandelson! Mandelson! A Memoir

Moderniser, trouble-shooter, king-maker, architect of New Labour, power-broker, agent, asset, confidant: Peter Mandelson is emblematically the major political figure of our age. But who's happy? Whatever happened to happiness as a political imperative? And whatever happened to the public good? This book seeks answers to these questions and more.

This is a story of life in the age of Mandelson: politician, aesthete, director of communication. Moderniser, trouble-shooter, king-maker, architect of New Labour, power-broker, agent, asset, confidant: Peter Mandelson is emblematically, and maybe literally, the major political figure of our age. But who's happy? Whatever happened to happiness as a political imperative? And whatever happened to the public good? Oh, and while we're at it, how come some people are more answerable than others? "Mandelson! Mandelson! A Memoir" wants answers to these questions and more: an account - why not? - of an unaccountable age. "Mandelson! Mandelson!" is formally a various book; this is very much part of its point. It incorporates, among other forms: the sonnet, the villanelle, a noh play, a prose poem, diagrams, pictures, poems in quatrains, lists, haiku-like observations, non-haiku-like observations, free verse, a photograph, a bank statement and a disclaimer.