Mandelson in bullish form

GORDON Brown’s most powerful cabinet ally Peter Mandelson has called on Labour to “roll its sleeves up” and take the fight to the Conservatives instead of handing general election victory to David Cameron “on a plate”.

Despite the British prime minister’s current unpopularity in the polls, Mandelson, who is now a peer in the House of Lords, suggested Labour will seek to make the election into a choice between “the substance of Gordon Brown versus the shallowness of David Cameron”. And he indicated that Labour will fight on the basis of its economic record, claiming that Brown “averted a Great Depression” when banks came close to collapse last autumn.