Not so with Peter Mandelson. The ink was barely dry on his letter of resignation before he turned on his former colleagues by announcing his 'fightback' in Sunday's papers. But Mandy's tantrums reveal less about him than about the absence of party loyalty in New Labour. In fact, the Labour Party is no longer a political party in any real sense. It is more of a clique of political operators in which it's each man for himself.
New Labour is a party only in name.
It no longer has roots in society, and is not held together by a common political ideology. It is a machine to win elections and influence. As a result, ministers' ties to the party are more pragmatic than principled, and somebody like Mandelson can ditch his 'lifelong allegiance to the Labour Party' over the course of a weekend. Where once the party was divided between left and right, today's Labour is riven by petty personality clashes between Peter, Gordon, Robin and Alastair. When minister for international development Clare Short announced that 'Peter Mandelson is over', it made clear that personal animosity now takes precedence over closing ranks behind a former cabinet colleague.