1953-10-21

PETER MANDELSON, Baron Mandelson  PC is a British Labour politician, president of international think tank Policy Network, and chairman of strategic advisory firm Global Counsel.

From 1985 to 1991, Mandelson served as Labour’s Director of Communications. He was one of the first to whom the term ‘spin doctor’ was applied and gained the nickname ‘the Prince of Darkness’ because of his ‘ruthlessness’ and ‘media savvy’. He served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Hartlepool from 1992 to 2004 and held a number of Cabinet positions under Prime Minister Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He was the European Commissioner for Trade between 2004 and 2008.

Mandelson was one of several key individuals responsible for the rebranding of the Labour Party as New Labour before its subsequent victory in the 1997 election. He was twice forced to resign from the Cabinet before leaving Parliament to take up an appointment as a European Commissioner. He later rejoined the Cabinet for a third time after being created a Life Peer, sitting on the Labour benches in the House of Lords. He is the only person to hold the position of First Secretary of State as a Peer.

Mandelson is beset with scandals redolent of the Trump administrations Russian entanglements. Suffice it to say that he spends a good deal of time on the Russian oligarch, Oleg Derapaska’s yacht in the Mediterranean. Then Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Mandelson’s dealings with Deripaska had been “found to be above board”. He’s also spent time on the late American oligarch, Paul Allen’s yacht.

Mandelson is gay and he is — as they say — ‘intensely private’ about his personal life. During his time as a former government leader, the press – tabloid and broadsheet alike – often portrayed Mandelson as effeminate through “the linguistic resources of camp” (as evidenced through his common nickname, ‘Mandy’) and narcissistic – sometimes including coded references to homosexual acts in their descriptions of his actions.

He has lived with his life partner Reinaldo Avila da Silva, a Portuguese-English translator, since March 1998.