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Jayne Dawson: Ooh you are awful, but I like you...
Hold on to your hats, I'm about to say something explosive: I like Peter Mandelson.
It wasn't that bad, was it? Unlikely, in truth, to blow off either your hat or your socks.
Because Peter Mandelson, aka The Prince Of Darkness (TPOD) is, I suspect, being rapidly rehabilitated.
Once, there were only two people in the country who liked him. I was one and his mother was the other.
Everybody else seemed to think the safest course was to form the sign of a cross at the mention of his name, and waft garlic about. Even Tony.
I don't know why, I always found him fun.
I like a person apparently completely unfazed by being at the heart of government, a man who wears the responsibilities of office as lightly as the baby blue cashmere sweater thrown around his shoulders on casual, weekend days.
And I like a man who is laconic and dry, even when describing his own downfall.
Thus it was shortly after I heard the following exchange that I decided I really liked TPOD.
Interviewer: "How did Tony Blair sack you, the second time around?"
The Prince of Darkness: "Surprisingly easily".
And, since I was in the audience at the time, it was shortly after hearing that exchange and deciding that I really liked him, that I approached TPOD seeking to have my photograph taken with him, since sometimes I forget to be a grown-up with grown-up attributes, like dignity.
TPOD, I can only report, was graciousness itself and, if my husband hadn't chopped the top of his head off, I would have been completely satisfied with the resultant memento of an enjoyable occasion.
Since the book and the adverts though, I think I'm not the only one warming to TPOD. I believe he is, in fact, following that particular path of public life where People We Hate become People We Have Developed a Soft Spot For. Which is why he will be speaking at the Queens Hotel in Leeds tonight, with tickets at 10 each.
Sending yourself up is usually key to this transformation. So TPOD did himself a big favour when he agreed to play the pantomime baddie to promote his new book, The Third Man, where he spills the secrets of life at the heart of the Blair government.
Though, really, who is there left to be surprised by the news that Gordon hated Tony for nicking his job, and that Tony was determined to cling on to it for dear life while at the same time being a bit scared of Gordon, and that Alastair could get on your nerves?
Sounds a bit tame to me. You should see what it's like in this office.
But whatever. The important point for TPOD is that soon he will be able to appear on quiz shows, should he so wish, or make programmes about politicians of the past who were nearly as good as him, or share his favourite cupcake recipe with the nation, that kind of a thing.
Others have taken this same path, most of them, it has to be said, men. Women tend to have a different experience, one that sees them enjoying a honeymoon period, before becoming despised and derided.
Currently, Christine Bleakley is suffering this fate. So pronounced has been her popularity downfall that I am thinking of naming the whole phenomenon the Christine Bleakley Effect, or CBE for short.
One minute she was the modest, smiley girl lifted from the shop floor to sit on the One Show sofa, the next she had aquired herself a footballer boyfriend, a seven figure salary and the contempt of the nation. It's been a rapid about-face.
Blokes tend to have it easier. With them, we like to follow the template created by the scriptwriters of EastEnders where just about everybody who comes in as a baddie stands a decent chance of becoming a stalwart with a heart of gold.
Thus Michael Portillo, the man whose downfall was so enjoyed when he lost his safe Tory seat in 1997 that a whole book was named after the election night moment (Were You Still Up for Portillo) is now a nice chap who rides around on steam trains. His path to rehabilitation began when he acknowledged how much fun that election moment had been for everyone but him.
Ken Livingstone similarly was once seen as a dangerous man who wanted to overthrow the democratic process and, probably, install in government the communists he kept under his bed. His road to redemption opened up before him when he began to tell the world about his newts, because it's hard to fear and loathe a man with an honest passion for newts.
Tony Benn had a similar trajectory from hate figure to teetotal national treasure.
Simon Cowell has also turned from Person We Hate to Person We Have A Soft Spot for. What was it about Simon that made us forgive him ? Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's just the rudeness, because we Brits have a fondness for rudeness, don't we? But probably the trousers come into it. With those high-waisted trousers we believe him to be sending himself up in a manner at least equal to the TPOD in those adverts.
So I may be a little ahead of the pack here, a teensy bit in the vanguard, with my fondness for Peter. You might well be still at the forming crosses and wafting garlic stage. But, trust me, on this one. I'm right, you're wrong, and very soon you will learn to love him too.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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