Are there no limits to which the British Labour Party's minister without portfolio Peter Mandelson will go to ensure the smooth running of his party conference? Journalists in Brighton this week desperate to find some gap in the wall-to-wall enthusiasm for Prime Minister Tony Blair looked in vain for former spokesman on the North, Kevin McNamara. It eventually emerged that he was leading a parliamentary delegation to the Bahamas. Crediting Mandelson with his absence would be misplaced, he said.
Although Mandelson, aka Blair's Svengali, is believed to have been influencial in having McNamara replaced by Mo Mowlam, Mandelson and Mowlam are not the best of friends either. It appears that when Mandelson was packaging New Labour he dictated that Mo should henceforth be known as Dr Marjorie Mowlam. She overruled him and refused to have her image redesigned. The tension between the pair grew when a Mandelson friend told the BBC that Mandelson himself would make a most admirable Northern Secretary.
As if to scotch the rumours of a mounting rift, the two were spotted dancing together, according to one witness, "with great purpose", at the Young Labour bash last Sunday. But the rapport, real or contrived, was cut short when Mandelson failed to join Mowlam following the elections the next day to Labour's ruling National Executive Council.