Mandelson attacks press intrusion

PETER MANDELSON, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, stepped into the row over media intrusion into politicians' private lives last night with a warning that the public was more interested in "the real issues".

Speaking at a seminar in Madrid, Mr Mandelson said the success of the Democrats in this month's United States congressional elections proved that the Monica Lewinsky affair had no impact on the voters.

The minister, who was "outed" as a homosexual before the same fate befell Nick Brown, the Minister of Agriculture, said that the American experience should serve as an example to the British media.

In a coded attack on the press coverage of the downfall of Ron Davies, the former secretary of state for Wales, as well as himself, he said President Bill Clinton's continuing popularity proved the voters were uninterested in such stories.

"The outcome of the US congressional elections has been seen as another Houdini act by the President, as yet another comeback for the Comeback Kid. That's true.

"It's also been seen as the American people ignoring scandal, and concentrating on the real issues. There is a lesson to be learnt there."

Mr Mandelson is known to be opposed to a privacy law, but his comments reinforce the Government's view that the press should be more responsible and recognise the public mood on MPs' private lives.

Ministers have been boosted by polls by tabloid newspapers that claimed the public did not want to know the details of what politicians did in the privacy of their own home.

Mr Mandelson made his remarks as he addressed a seminar of the Spanish Socialist Party on Labour's vision of the Third Way between old-style socialism and an unregulated free market.

Launching a Spanish translation of Tony Blair's recent Fabian pamphlet on the subject, he said that the Democrat victories proved the far right was losing support across the globe.

"The victory for the Democrats was a victory for ideas. Its message to the Republicans in Congress and especially to their ex-leader Newt Gingrich was clear. The extreme right is losing."

By contrast, centre-left parties that attempted to modernise social democracy had scored repeated successes right across Europe and now governed 13 out of the 15 European Union countries.

Delivering the first analysis of the US elections by a cabinet minister, Mr Mandelson added that the only Republicans who did well were those such as George Bush Jnr and Jeb Bush. "Why? Because they moved towards the centre, away from the right," he said.