Peter Mandelson

Peter Mandelson born 21 October 1953

Peter Benjamin Mandelson, Baron Mandelson, PC is a British Labour politician who is the serving Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, appointed on 3 October 2008. Mandelson is regarded as one of the main players, along with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, of the modern Labour Party and its rebranding as 'New Labour'. He is often referred to by the nickname 'Mandy' by much of the British news media.

Having helped Labour come to power in 1997, he was then forced twice to resign from Tony Blair's government while holding Cabinet positions. After his second resignation he served as the European Commissioner for Trade for almost four years, before being brought back into mainstream British politics by Gordon Brown.

Before Labour came to power, he was author (with Roger Liddle) of The Blair Revolution (1996). More recently, he contributed to the book The City in Europe and the World (2005). Mandelson served as Member of Parliament for Hartlepool for twelve years, a seat he vacated in order to become a European Commissioner.

During his few months in Tony Blair's government, he was the centre of a great deal of media attention when Matthew Parris (openly gay former MP and then Parliamentary sketch writer of The Times) mentioned during a live interview on BBC2's Newsnight, in the wake of the resignation of Ron Davies, that 'Peter Mandelson is certainly gay'. Mandelson's homosexuality had been well-known but not widely publicised except on the front pages of the Sunday People, and Mandelson had not wanted it discussed.

After Parris's remarks, the press felt free to discuss his personal life (in particular his relationship with the Brazilian Reinaldo Avila da Silva) to a much greater extent and much of the political criticism he received as a Cabinet minister was arguably tinged with homophobia, although he was generally the victim of his own creation - political spin.

His return to the Cabinet as a member of Gordon Brown's government has been an unexpected and surprising new twist in the career of this not so charming man.