For Labour, there's no such thing as society

Spectator, The, Nov 28, 1998 by Oborne, Peter

However much Mr Blair and Mr Mandelson ingratiate themselves with the rich, says Peter Oborne, the rest of the Cabinet want no part of it

WHEN the Labour party secured power after the general election of 1923 a tremor of apprehension swept through the propertied classes. Landowners feared for their estates, capitalists for their dividends, fathers for their daughters.

These fears were soon allayed. The new Labour prime minister, Ramsay Macdonald, was determined to establish Labour in the public mind as a respectable political party rather than a sinister Bolshevik sect. He therefore went out of his way to to pander to the ruling class. Many on his own side felt that he went too far in this direction and that his relationship with great hostesses such as Lady Londonderry was too cosy, if not downright improper.

Seventy years on, and Tony Blair is just as concerned as Ramsay Macdonald to reassure the egos of the rich and powerful. The Prime Minister does not find the process disagreeable. He is never more at ease than in opulent and comfortable surroundings - but, as with Macdonald, a strong political logic dictates his choice of dinner companions and holiday home. He is in the business of turning Labour into the natural party of government, and wants the ruling class on his side.

Macdonald focused mainly on the landed aristocracy, still a power in his day. Mr Blair's preoccupation is the new `superclass'. Very rich men fascinate him. The Blairs' table at this year's Labour party gala dinner in central London contained five men with a combined wealth estimated at more than 4 billion: the supermarket baron Lord Sainsbury; the publisher Paul Hamlyn; the printing and media tycoon Bob Gavron; the computer whizz-kid David Goldman, and Michael Levy, the music publisher who is Mr Blair's regular tennis partner.

New Labour's obsession with winning over senior businessmen does not mean that it is immune to old-style British landed society. `What is astonishing is the way New Labour and the upper classes have clicked,' proclaims one hostess. This, however, she puts down to the heroic and almost single-handed efforts of Peter Mandelson. 'Peter', shrills the same hostess, 'is the number one scalp for any social lionhunter.'

The way this lad from the dreary wastes of north London has sliced his way through the upper reaches of British cafe society is breathtaking and, in its way, wholly to be admired. This month's edition of the society magazine Tatler celebrates Mr Mandelson as one of Britain's most eligible men. 'Now the only thing this Notting Hill politico is without', gushes the paper, 'is a wife.'

His bachelor status is a serious advantage, however, leaving weekends and evenings free for country-house parties, soirees and smart dinners. It also means that Mr Mandelson, unlike so many of his government colleagues, is not dragged down by the insuperable handicap of a female companion acquired at an earlier stage of his social evolution. The Trade Secretary's almost unprecedented success - he is the most fashionable political dinner party guest since the young F.E. Smith before the first world war - owes much to his silky charm, impeccable courtesy and private kindness. It owes much to his being, unlike the vast majority of his ministerial colleagues, at ease with a knife and fork. It owes much to the Trade Secretary, with his handmade suits and Coutts Bank account, being a bit of a snob.

It owes something to Carla Powell, the flamboyant Italian wife of Baroness Thatcher's private secretary, Sir Charles Powell. She enthusiastically launched Mr Mandelson on his way, selflessly playing Professor Henry Higgins to Mr Mandelson's Eliza Doolittle. First she was hostess of a series of dinner parties so he could meet members of the establishment, then she completed his social education by having him to stay for a protracted period in her west London flat.

Lady Powell has paid a price for her shameless switch of political affiliation: former friends feel neglected, and her once warm friendship with Margaret Thatcher is now badly in need of repair. Doubtless she feels it was all worthwhile. For just as Eliza Doolittle eclipsed her tutor Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady, so Peter Mandelson has left Carla Powell far behind.

He is now overwhelmed by mouth-wateringly desirable invitations and is - so friends say - compelled to turn down all but a very few. There are now rumours that Mr Mandelson, a keen horseman, yearns to take up hunting. For his key triumph is to attain something very few outside the Gloucestershire hunting set have ever managed, complete acceptance by Camilla Parker Bowles and the Prince of Wales. He was not merely the only member of the government present at the Highgrove celebration for the Prince's 50th birthday, but earlier this year attended a weekend party with the couple at Sandringham.

As Peter Mandelson scales the social heights, his immediate entourage has been dragged along in his wake. Roy Jenkins, in social matters at least a notable forerunner of Mr Mandelson, would have been proud of the way the Trade Secretary's assistant Derek Draper has ingratiated himself with the Bonham Carters: the hapless Draper was staying in their Italian villa when news of his many indiscretions broke in the Observer. The veteran political columnist Anthony Howard's public criticism of Draper is said to have come to an abrupt halt when this important Whiggish connection was brought to his notice.