Cheery weekend update: Mandelson thwarted

Cheeringly, Mandelson came a resounding 4th in a final field of 5 for the Chancellorship of the university.  He had really pulled out all the stops on this, including blow-by-blow briefings to LabourList (who must have groaned, but still published it all through gritted teeth - I expect he indicated there'd be something in it for them.  Or issued some kind of threat, he is never slow with the menace**).

Couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke.  We read that what he's really going to be doing over the next few years is be Ambassador to the USA.  I can just see him now, wheedling with Bum-Steer Kier: "what you absolutely must have, is someone who can effectively negotiate with Trump in the only ways he understands ... What my many US contacts tell me, is that he only respects people who've been in the game for a long time, with a lot of personal money and a track record of dealing with global issues in a transactional, realpolitik way ..."  

Will it work?  I'm told not: but strange things are happening quite a lot these days.

ND

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** I have told this story before.  Many years ago I had an office in No.4 Millbank, a fine Edwardian building you will be familiar with from its roof terrace and staircase because, overlooking the Lords, it also houses the Beeb's Westminster offices and they conduct many a TV news clip or interview from there.  At the time, the Labour Party also had a suite there - it was just before New Labour's great 1997 GE victory - and Mandy was in his prime, calling all the shots.

One day I happened upon him in a corridor with a small gaggle of very young Labour staffers.  I have no idea what was the context; but in a soft, conversational manner, he berated them thus:  "... and if you ever screw up like that again, I will make sure you never work in London for the rest of your lives".  Such a nice chap.