Mandelson smarm fails to woo non-politicos

I watched Peter Mandelson's performance on Andrew Marr earlier and Marr struggled to land a punch on him for most the interview. I tweeted that Sophie Raworth would have done a much better job as she did with Mandy a few months ago although he probably would have refused to go on if it had have been her!

Paul Waugh tweeted that Mandy had messed up though and had confirmed in one of his answers that Balls had been considered for Chancellor. This is at odds with Brown's protestations that Darling was not considered for the chop. It must be hard for government ministers with all this stuff that is obviously true swirling around in their heads that they are not allowed to say, they are bound to blurt out the truth occasionally.

However the main thing I noted whilst appreciating Mandy's technical ability to not answer any of the questions was my wife commenting "He's a smarmy git isn't he?". She is not really interested in politics but I suspect that most non-politicos think the same thing and whilst he is "technically" a safe pair of hands, he is probably losing the Labour Party votes every time he slimes his way onto the media.

In the light of this I watched later in the interview when Marr made the mistake of not being totally accurate in the way that he portrayed Hazel Blears' exit from the cabinet. Mandelson was visibly delighted that he was able to hone in on this very slight nuance of inaccuracy and couldn't help but smirk whilst he jabbed his finger and made his point. It was not a pleasant sight.

Technical Political Score: 7/10

Joe Public Score: 0/10

UDPATE: Edited to correct what my wife actually said (she requested the amendment)!