- guardian.co.uk, Friday February 16 2001 02.27 GMT
Unlike many of my more gullible colleagues, bless 'em, I was always wary of him, and never believed a word that he said. Why was I so clear sighted, when so many were blind? My friends would ascribe it to my integrity, my enemies, no doubt, to what they delight in describing as my razor-sharp intelligence. But the fact remains that, unlike all the others, I was always immune to his so-called "charms".
On holiday with him in 1994, and again in 1996, I always kept my distance. To assure my journalistic "independence", I would refuse to accept an incoming call from him if he was already in the same room as me. Similarly, if he had asked to write my political think-pieces for me, I would always have told him to take a running jump: it may come as a surprise to Mr Mandelson, but one soon loses one's reputation as a political commentator of seasoned integrity when you start letting those in power dictate their own thoughts under your own name.
Your needs must have a long spoon if you're going to sup with the devil, and I always made a point of letting him serve himself with his own Mediterranean mixed-leaf salad, unless it was strictly my turn. On the beach with him, I learnt never to trust what he said. I found myself weekending with him in Cornwall for research purposes in June 1998, when he offered me an expensive Cornetto, claiming that it would be "just what the doctor ordered".
Call it instinct, call it integrity (and - yes - some of us still do possess a fair measure of that vital asset, you know!) but I simply wasn't prepared to accept a free ice-cream from this man. To my horror, I was later to discover that, far from being medically recommended, a Cornetto is in fact full of calories, with a heavy ice-cream content, plus potentially debilitating wafers. Once again, I had cause to congratulate myself that I had seen through the man's evil underhand ploys.
I was, I like to think, the first to condemn this wicked man's slippery wiles. Nor was I ever taken in by his claims to genius. As long ago as 1996, I wrote a profile of Mandelson in the Observer ("New Labour's presiding genius" January 5 1996) in which I had the courage to point out one or two glaring character faults. "Beneath the charming and forceful exterior," I wrote - thus boldly indicating that he was a man who was not above using force to get his way - "lies a sensitive and highly intelligent man." By skilfully employing that charged word - "lies" - I became the first journalist to question his relaxed attitude to the truth.
I'm glad to say I never had lunch with the guy other than when strictly necessary, and then only between the hours of 12.30 and 3pm. Looking back, I always resented the way he would hand me the menu and ask me what I wanted to eat, and would I like something to drink, blah, blah: in other words, all the familiar ploys of deception we have come to recognise in monomaniacal control freaks. And at the end of the meal, he would sometimes motion his hand to his jacket pocket - a signal which I realise was now a covert means of "buying me lunch". Sorry, Peter - but I'm not so easily bought.
More alert than my colleagues (sorry, guys!) I could see through these insincere questions to the dark heart that lay within. I am proud to say I never liked him in the first place. I deplored the way that, when the two of us were alone together, he would listen to tittle-tattle for hours on end when he must have known full well that not only was it disloyal to the victims but that both of us had more important things to do. And as I inferred as recently as December of last year ("Brilliant Mandelson saves Northern Ireland"), I always regarded his competence as secretary of state as highly questionable.
We've all met his type in our workplace. They take a holier-than-thou position - but only when their victims cannot answer back. It is one of the less appealing characteristics of the Mandelson type that they kick people when they're down. The moment they see someone has fallen from grace and can be of no further use to them, they discard him. Then they dance on his grave, whooping and throwing their hands in the air - often claiming in the process that they never liked him in the first place. Believe me, it's not a pleasant sight.
Personally, I like to live in a country that regards lying as a resigning offence. In that way, politicians like Mandelson bring out the best in journalists like me, for he reminds us that without our integrity, we are nothing.
