Martha Kearney has got a nice yarn in her weekly newsletter which I haven't heard before. It's from the time when John Smith was Labour leader and Peter Mandelson was in the doghouse because Smith thought media manipulation was an unnecessary irrelevance.
I heard a funny story this week about Peter Mandelson and the late Labour leader John Smith.
Mandelson was desperate to win back favour, so during the Newbury byelection his aides checked and rechecked people who would be suitable for the Labour leader to meet during his walkabout.
All went well, no Sharon Storers [the woman who berated Tony Blair about her husband's cancer care], so he expected high praise afterwards.
Instead John Smith said: "See, there's no need for spin. Those people were all perfectly nice."
So Peter Mandelson had to wait until Tony Blair became leader for his first comeback.
At one level this is fun because it shows Mandelson being undone by his own deviousness. But, more significantly, it also illustrates the important truth that "spin" is at its best when it's invisible.
