Mandelson warns Brown he risks electoral defeat

In the UK one of the architects of New Labour, Peter Mandelson, has warned that Prime Minister Gordon Brown risks losing power unless he identifies himself more clearly with the principles which won Tony Blair three general elections.

Mr Mandelson said that the scrapping of the 10p income tax rate was “a very big mistake” which breached the New Labour tenet that the Government should help the poorest and neediest in society.

But he said he believes that the prime minister is still committed to the New Labour project and is capable of turning round the party’s fortunes before the general election expected in 2010.

Speaking to BBC TV’s HardTalk with Stephen Sackur last night, Mr Mandelson identified the four key pillars of New Labour as fiscal discipline, investment and reform in public services, helping the poor and maintaining strong partnerships with Europe and the USA.

And he warned: “Those were the four basic tenets of New Labour, they gave us our success in the last 10 years, and if they continued to be operated and improved so that they evolve, they will provide success for the Labour Party in the years to come.

“But if you abandon those tenets you are going to abandon key segments of public support for New Labour and I’m afraid in that those circumstances we’re going to lose the next election.

“I think that the actions of the government and the policies of the government have got to be more clearly identified with those tenets of New Labour and people have got to be persuaded that in these mainstream policy areas you have a government which is still thinking, reforming, modernising, pushing forward the frontiers, rather than a government that has exhausted itself and run out of policy ideas.”

Asked if Mr Brown would would be able to do this, Mr Mandelson replied: “I think he has satisfied his colleagues, he’s satisfied me, that he’s New Labour.

“But the actions of his government, the policies of his government, the new ideas of his government have got to bear that out to the satisfaction of the public as a whole and I believe if they do that successfully, they can and they will win the next general election.”

Mr Mandelson, the European Union’s Trade Commissioner, was critical of the protectionist policies put forward by the three candidates for US President, John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, during the primaries.

Without naming any particular candidate, he said it was “irresponsible” for them to tell voters that they would protect jobs at home by erecting barriers to trade.

“You can match the rhetoric from my comments to the individual because I’m not going to do that,” he said.

“But it’s still irresponsible to be pretending to people that you can erect new protection, new tariff barriers around your economy, in this 21st century global age in which we live and still succeed in sustaining people’s living standards, sustaining their jobs, sustaining their futures and opportunities for their children.

“Where’s that going to lead us? It’s going to lead us into a vicious spiral of beggar-my-neighbour policies which will take us decades back in terms of trade growth and rising living standards.”

Mr Mandelson said he was hopeful that outgoing US President George Bush would agree the bulk of a new international trade deal before he leaves office early next year.

And he said he had received assurances from key committee chairs in Congress that international agreements entered into by the Bush administration would be honoured after the handover of power, even if they have not yet been sanctioned formally by Congress.