Cosy Nostra makes you an offer

Published on Monday 26 July 2004 00:52

PETER Mandelson was striding along the street, declaiming to the press gang trying to keep up with him.

He almost got away with it, too. It was only a millisecond and probably went completely unnoticed in the hubbub around him, but watching it on the television news, it was obvious that, in that tiny speck of silence, all Peter really wanted to say was something along the lines of "… reclaim the dazzling career I always deserved. It is mine. Mine, I tell you!" And laugh hysterically, like a Bond villain with a new monorail.

It seems almost churlish to point out that this is actually Peter’s third chance (even he seems to have lost count) but, luckily for democracy, most other people haven’t and even though Crony Blair has managed to present his bosom buddy with another cushy number, the knives are out everywhere, even within the tight-knit, impenetrable little cliques that exist in government and which specialise in artificially prolonging careers that should have ended years ago. Crony Blair presides over a tiny mafia - let’s call them the Cosy Nostra - which, elected or not, decides the fate of Britain. Let’s scroll back from Mandelson’s appointment as EU commissioner and see how close any ordinary member of the public came to influencing this decision. Mandelson got the job because Blair - and, it seems, only Blair - wanted him to have it. Blair got his job because a section of the Labour Party - total voting strength less than 250,000 - decided he was their man. The Labour Party is in power despite the fact only 40.7 per cent of us voted for it.

But, in many ways, it’s an appropriate appointment. The EU is famous for having its own Cosy Nostra, where cronyism, corruption and the fat-cat mentality run rife, but I think the main reason that Mandelson’s latest resurrection galls people so much is because it reminds us once again that we don’t live in a meritocracy, but a mate-ocracy and if you’re not one of Tony’s mates, you can forget your hopes of flying high. Of course, different mate-ocracies operate in all walks of society. I recall one Christmas issue of the Equity journal that contained a fold-out game of special, thespian snakes and ladders to entertain resting luvvies between pantomime auditions and the dole queue. Once my friends and I started to play, we realised that the game had been ingeniously designed to reflect the realities of the acting world. The only way to win was to be one of Vanessa Redgrave’s children. I remember this game every time I see the tortoise-faced children of rock stars getting modelling contracts, or another Martin Amis novel appear. Yet, however insidious and galling they are, at least these mate-ocracies don’t have power over our everyday lives.

Thanks to the Washington branch of the Cosy Nostra, the US is saddled with a president who can’t breathe and eat pretzels at the same time. Because the Bush family considered the presidency to be Dubya’s birthright, they managed to persuade just enough people in the mate-ocracy that it was a good idea.

Mandelson gained immediate entrance to the Cosy Nostra on his grandfather’s coat-tails. He talks about serving his country, but so far his entire career seems to have been dedicated to serving nobody but himself and the Labour Party. His constituents in Hartlepool are certainly taking his desertion extremely well.

Crony Blair isn’t worrying about any of this any more. He’s now holidaying at Sir Cliff Richard’s pad in Barbados. Not an invitation that is extended to just anybody, but in the Cosy Nostra, the mutual back-scratching never stops. Look out for Lord Richard of Wimbledon in the next honours list.