Peter Mandelson calls for Labour caution in improving workers’ rights

Peter Mandelson told a dinner audience at the Labour conference he congratulated Keir Starmer for ‘switching us back from weird to normal’. Photograph: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images

Peter Mandelson has warned Labour not to go too far in bringing in labour market reforms to benefit workers and hit out at Unite’s Sharon Graham, while describing the past decade of party leaders as “weak, weak, weak”.

The Labour peer, a former business secretary and architect of the 1997 election victory, gave a combative speech to a City of London Corporation dinner at the party conference, where he warned against making labour market reforms that swung towards the “other extreme”.