Mandelson 'I am not the PM's yes man'
Updated on 29 September 2009
Watch Jon Snow's full interview with Peter Mandelson who tells him that their electoral reform is "historical dynamite".
Business Secretary Peter Mandelson said Gordon Brown's speech showed he was a "man of huge drive and ambition, but an enormous appetite for new policy" – despite the tough financial climate.
"If we are going to be more for example in childcare, for schools, then we're going to have to do some less of other things within that department, as Ed Balls made clear recently," Lord Mandelson said.
"And if we are going to open up a whole new pattern of provision to look after the elderly, for people who suffer from Alzheimer's disease, as my mother did, and dementia, and who need the sort of national care service he was describing, then the department of health is going to have to make difficult decisions elsewhere in its budget.
"This is the new spending climate that we're entering, but it doesn't mean we can't do anything new or differently as the PM made clear today."
He described the party's plans for electoral reform, including a new manifesto commitment for a referendum on a different voting system, as "dynamite" in historical terms.
"Now we've had a terrible furore over expenses over the past year – and the public want to see change," he said.
"They want to see not only a different kind of parliament, with this right of recall, but I think they want to have their own trust in politics and politicians as restored by being given the chance to make a difference to the electoral system as well."
Mandelson was effusive in his praise for the prime minister. "It's all very well you saying he's stubborn," he told Jon Snow. "One thing [Brown] said in his speech which is absolutely true is that he's not a man who easily takes no for an answer, as I have now discovered yet again from my own experience.
"But I like in a prime minister, I like a guy who doesn't take no for an answer, I like a guy who's determined to do things and to make change and not settle for second best."
"I'm not his yes man, but I do have to say occasionally, do we have to do this all at once without prioritising?"
Mandelson said the adoring reaction to his own speech yesterday "took everyone by surprise, me included"
