ANDREW PIERCE: Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson aren’t ancient history… they’re still pulling Keir Starmer’s strings

Lord Mandelson’s apparent revelation that Tony Blair cynically decided to ban fox hunting while being offered a fat donation for the Labour Party from an animal charity more than 20 years ago may seem to some like ancient political history. 

But make no mistake, these two Labour giants are now back as two of the most influential advisers in party leader Sir Keir’s Starmer’s kitchen cabinet.

Blair and Starmer talk all the time – they even managed to fit in at a meeting at the United Nations Cop28 climate change jamboree in Dubai – with Starmer the eager apprentice to Labour’s longest serving leader.

As for Mandelson, for some time now he’s been conducting master classes on spin for shadow ministers who have not made much impact, which is most of them. Like Blair, he’s constantly on the telephone to Starmer and was omnipresent at the party conference in Liverpool in October.

The duo’s importance will grow further if, as expected, Starmer wins the general election. His cabinet will be short on heavyweights with only a clutch of MPs who have ministerial experience such as Yvette Cooper and Ed Miliband.

Tony Blair and Keir Starmer talk all the time – they even managed to fit in at a meeting at the United Nations Cop28 climate change jamboree in Dubai – with Starmer the eager apprentice to Labour’s longest serving leader

 It was Mandelson and Blair who warned Starmer against focusing too much on green issues and to avoid House of Lords reform

Starmer’s supporters make no apology for the fact that Blair, whose reputation has never recovered from the Iraq War, and Mandelson, who was twice forced to quit the cabinet, are restored to Labour’s inner circle. ‘They know how to win elections,’ said a Starmer loyalist. ‘We don’t, which is why we have lost the last four.’

Their influence is already clear to see. It was Mandelson and Blair who warned Starmer against focusing too much on green issues and to avoid House of Lords reform. Mandelson will have purred with pleasure when Starmer rowed back on his Green New Deal. Where the Lords are concerned, no one in the shadow cabinet talks any more about the constitutional reforms set out in a 155-page report by Gordon Brown last year.

Starmer’s shadow cabinet is also awash with policy documents from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, known as TBI. What started out as a boutique political consultancy has developed into a multinational enterprise with offices around the world – in the UK, US, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and Ghana – employing more than 750 staff.

Blair’s staff help write policy documents for Starmer’s frontbenchers who have been ordered to be receptive to the former prime minister. ‘If Blair calls, he gets straight through,’ said one fed-up Labour MP.

Starmer’s plan for a closer relationship with the EU is another sign of Mandelson’s influence. Mandelson, a former EU commissioner, hosted a two-day ‘Remainer’ gathering in February at Ditchley Park in Oxfordshire to address ‘the failings of Brexit’.

The choice of venue was significant. As a location for a grand but discreet gathering, it is hard to beat. Elizabeth I once stayed at the estate, which is now the home of the Ditchley Foundation set up in the 1950s to promote international relations.

The foundation is chaired by Lord Hill, a former EU commissioner. Mandelson is on the board and Sir John Major, a former Tory PM who called Brexit a disaster, is a former chairman. Tellingly, Mandelson, Blair and Starmer were all champions of the campaign for a second referendum.

Lord Mandelson’s apparent revelation that Tony Blair cynically decided to ban fox hunting while being offered a fat donation for the Labour Party from an animal charity more than 20 years ago may seem to some like ancient political history

Many of Blair’s acolytes now work in Starmer’s private office. They include Matthew Doyle, who was with Blair in opposition and at Downing Street, and is now Starmer’s head of communications. Peter Hyman, a strategist for Blair from 1994 to 2003, is now a ‘senior adviser’ on Starmer’s team. He’s the author of Starmer’s five mission statements published this year, which even Labour MPs struggle to recall. Deborah Mattinson, who was Blair’s pollster, and Marianna McFadden, who was with the TBI for six years, now both work for Starmer.

READ MORE: Tony Blair agreed to ban fox hunting after a £1 million donation to Labour from an animal rights group, Peter Mandelson claims

Blair’s return to favour in Labour circles was underlined when he shared a stage with Starmer at a summit in July organised by the TBI. Starmer’s outing with the New Labour pioneer sent out the clearest signal yet to his party that Blairism is no longer taboo.

When asked in a recent interview whether he would want to be involved in a Starmer government, Blair said it was through the TBI that he can be of most assistance.

‘It’s completely to be used however they wish it to be used – in the sense of advising and introducing and all of that,’ he told the New Statesman.

But perhaps Mandelson’s advice should be treated with some caution. Starmer was mocked by both the left and right of the political divide after he recently wrote in praise of Mrs Thatcher.

Was the former ‘Prince of Darkness’ behind this new-found enthusiasm for the Iron Lady? Only days before the article was published, Mandelson had been spotted in Westminster locked deep in conversation with Morgan McSweeney who is Starmer’s head of campaigning.

While the Tories struggle with internal divisions over the Rwanda policy, the return of Blair to the political ascendancy at least gives them a sharp line of attack.

It was Blair’s Britain that first opened its borders to unprecedented numbers of migrants, putting a huge strain on housing, schools and the NHS. And now the former PM and his cheerleaders – the very people behind this own goal – are pulling the strings of Starmer.

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