Lord Peter Mandelson in custardy

Mandelson proves his green credentials

I guess that it is no surprise to any regular Barnet Eye readers to find out that I'm not a fan of the Peter Mandelson brand of Labour politics. I was completely enraged by his comments in the Observer concerning the privatisation of the Post Office. It prompted me to run the poll at the side of the blog.

Today an anti Heathrow protester got a trifle hot under the collar and gave his Lordship a dousing down with green custard. The media reaction has been rather interesting. Worthies such as John Prescott (himself recipient of eggs, buckets of water, etc) have been screaming "throw her in the slammer". They scream "What if it had been Acid"?

Well the point is that it wasn't. If I was Mandelson, I'd secretly be rather thankful. For the price of some dry cleaning (doubtless covered by some allowance), he'll get a full security review and should Al-Quaida be planning to get him, I'd say their chances of succeeding just diminished considerably.

I think that anyone doing such an action, so long as the recipient of the custard pie, egg, tomato or slime is a public figure, should be told off by a Policeman and sent on their way. If the recipient chooses to react in a Prescottian fashion and punch the perpetrator, I'd also say fair game. It adds to the gaity of the nation. You can be sure that the proprieters of the Daily Mail, Express and Sun are not enraged, whatever their papers say. There will be a big circulation boost tomorrow.

As I said above, I'm not a fan of Peter Mandelson, but I rather admire his response. I'm sure he wasn't happy, but he was quite measured and sensible in not screaming blue murder. He seemed to accept it goes with the territory. I understand he hasn't made a complaint to the Police. It hasn't changed my mind about his suitability for the award we're running though !