As the rumours began escalating yesterday about Peter Mandelson’s likely appointment as the next ambassador to the USA, I began thinking, as a gay man, about that special place of respect one must preternaturally keep for Mandy. Agree with him or disagree with him politically. That’s everyone’s prerogative. But personally, you cannot help but love him.
In my voting adulthood, Peter Mandelson has distinguished himself from all gay competition to climb some serious, lofty heights. These momentous achievements, including not just presiding over the one British government that organised equality across the legal spectrum for lesbians and gay men in the country, turned him into first the most powerful gay man in Britain, then probably the most powerful gay politician of my lifetime. He’s far from the most likeable gay politician of his generation (that would be Angela Eagle or Chris Smith) or indeed the most heroic (that’d be Peter Tatchell, clearly) but he has singularly been the most effective.
