There's a wonderful quote in Fraser Nelson's article about George Osborne and Peter Mandelson in the latest issue of the Spectator.
Mr Mandelson believes he knows the Tory game plan because (he thinks) it is a pale copy of his own. He all but confessed this in a private meeting in Brussels recently, when a member of a trade delegation asked what he thought of David Cameron's strategy. 'Of course I think it's rather good,' he replied. 'I wrote it, after all.'
I have no idea whether the new business secretary really said this. But it's vain, mischievous and acutely perceptive – ie, classic Mandelson – and it's also true. Cameron has learned an enormous amount from the way the Blairites transformed the Labour brand in the 1990s. If Mandelson didn't say this, he should have done.
