Lord Mandelson on Labour, Levelling Up and the danger of the hard left

It's not often we get bona fide political royalty on the CapX Podcast, and whatever your political outlook, few people have bestrode British politics over the last few decades like Peter Mandelson. Mandelson is often credited as being the original 'spin doctor' in the 1980s, but that rather glib epithet undersells his influence on the New Labour project, where he was integral to both Tony Blair's ascent to the leadership and the party's subsequent electoral success. He went on to serve in a number of Cabinet roles and as a European Commissioner, before returning to government under Gordon Brown as Business Secretary and President of the Board of Trade. Given the breadth of his experience in government, we were very pleased to welcome Lord Mandelson to appear earlier this week at the Margaret Thatcher Conference on Trade, hosted by CapX's parent organisation the Centre for Policy Studies. Our editor John Ashmore caught up with him afterwards to talk trade, Brexit and how he sees his party's prospects under Keir Starmer.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.