Mandelson! Mandelson! A Memoir

This is a story of life in the age of Mandelson: politician, aesthete, director of communication. Is it possible to be happy in the age of Mandelson? Moderniser, trouble-shooter, king-maker, architect of New Labour, power-broker, agent, asset, confidant: Peter Mandelson is emblematically, and maybe literally, the major political figure of our age. But who’s happy? Whatever happened, Mandelson! Mandelson! wants to know, to happiness as a political imperative? And whatever happened to the public good? Oh, and while we’re at it, how come some people are more answerable than others? And anyway, who said work was more important than pleasure? And what should my end be? And what form should I take? And who’s welcome? And who isn’t? Mandelson! Mandelson! A Memoir wants answers to these questions and more: an account - why not? - of an unaccountable age. Since David Herd began writing this book Peter Mandelson has twice had to resign from cabinet office, and has thrice come back, defying all political gravity. He is unique, amazing, charmed, doomed. Mandelson! Mandelson! is formally a various book; this is very much part of its point. It incorporates, among other forms: the sonnet, the villanelle, a noh play, a prose poem, diagrams, pictures, poems in quatrains, lists, haiku-like observations, non-haiku-like observations, free verse, a photograph, a bank statement and a disclaimer.