For me this whole business confirms a lot of the ideas I had about the murky way politics works. The PM wanted a truly despicable person to become our Ambassador to the US. When it predictably blew up in his face he stalled on the release of documents that would have revealed the decision making process. He asked the civil service to force through the appointment despite serious concerns being thrown up by the vetting and he ignored his own advisors who cautioned against making the appointment until the results of the vetting were known. He sacked the bloke he basically forced to nod Mandelson through despite all the red flags. Once Mandelson was in post The House and the public would have reasonably believed it was because he had passed the developed vetting that had in fact showed him to be a highly questionable pick. I think the public do care about this because yet again they are being taken for fools by unscrupulous politicians, except this time it's by one who promised to be the opposite and who was going to clean up politics. They now know that processes meant to prevent people like Peter Mandelson obtaining high office can be secretly subverted on the whim of the PM and I expect they'll show their disgust at the ballot box next month. I must admit that I'm also having to change my mind on the likely outcome, having believed last week that he would have had no choice but to fall on his sword. I'm not going to make a prediction except to say I think he'll climb on for as long as he possibly can, especially as there's no clear route to forcibly get rid of him.
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