THE first thing to remember when considering Peter Mandelson’s version of events is that he is a proven liar.
I won’t say you can tell he’s fibbing if his lips are moving, but it’s not a bad rule of thumb.
Lord Mandy revels in deceit and shady half-truths.
Links ... Oleg Deripaska
He could not walk a straight line if you put him on a tightrope.
I can say that with certainty because he has lied point blank to me.
But since I’m a hack and he is the Prince Of Darkness, I can’t complain.
More importantly, he lied to his building society about a mortgage — a criminal offence which has landed others, including a judge, behind bars.
Mandelson is simply incorrigible. He moves effortlessly among sharks and villains who wouldn’t look out of place in the latest Bond movie.
Last week our new Business Secretary, formerly Europe’s powerful trade supremo, lied about his links with Oleg Deripaska, a mysterious Russian billionaire who has profited handsomely from recently changed EU trade rules.
He claimed they first met socially in 2006 but suddenly, under pressure, recalled sharing a posh Moscow lunch two years earlier.
Easy mistake, except we now know they met several more times before Mandy’s memory kicked in. He was flown to one rendezvous in money-hungry bagman Nathaniel Rothschild’s private jet, only to find he did not have a visa for Russia.
Mandy is obviously much too busy to recall such trivial matters.
There are plenty more questions for the man who was such a key player in the now-infamous Corfu Caper.
Why did he claim to be just one of several invited for drinks on the tycoon’s yacht when in fact he was an on-board guest?
As he accepted such lavish hospitality, did he know his host was barred from America for reasons undeclared but easily ascertained by a man in Mandy’s position?
Bomb
He will certainly have known his host is married to the daughter of Valentin Yumashev — ex-Kremlin leader Boris Yeltsin’s former chief of staff — and is almost a brother to Russia’s present PM, ex-KGB chief Vladimir Putin.
But did he know British secret services keep a file on the man who, aged 20, was starving and poor yet two decades later was Russia’s richest man with £16bn in assets?
Did he know that in Russia’s so-called “Metals Wars” which made Oleg fabulously rich, hundreds of rivals died by assassins’ bombs and bullets?
Did he know Deripaska was closely linked to one of Russia’s most vicious mobsters, Anton Malevsky, who owned ten per cent of Oleg’s company?
Euro MPs are now probing Mandelson’s part in cutting EU tax on imported aluminium, which was worth tens of millions to Deripaska.
Brussels refuses to discuss the matter beyond saying it was all above board — breaking its own rules on transparency.
And what about his strenuous efforts to win a place for Mafia-run Montenegro at the World Trade Organisation top table.
Did it have anything to do with Oleg and henchman Rothschild’s plan to turn this shady ex-Soviet state into a lucrative billionaire’s playground?
Why did Mandelson work so hard on behalf of Russia in protecting its second biggest insurance giant — largely owned by Mr Deripaska — from a bid by EU members Italy and the Czech Republic?
Whatever the rights and wrongs, isn’t Mandelson’s relationship with dodgy Deripaska a touch too intimate.
Does it explain why Mandelson persuaded the weirdly unpleasant Rothschild to “go nuclear” against his boyhood pal George Obsorne, potentially wrecking the Shadow Chancellor’s political career?
Was Rothschild’s hysteria triggered by the collapse in metals prices, which has knocked a gaping hole in both his and Oleg the Oligarch’s fortunes?
Osborne emerges badly from the Corfu cock-up. He should never have set foot on Oleg’s deck, let alone shaken hands with a man who may have blood on them.
But his £50,000 funding escapade — which came to nothing — is peanuts compared with Tony Blair’s infamous £1m deal with F1 billionaire Bernie Ecclestone.
Yes, there are genuine questions over Osborne’s judgement. But what about Gordon Brown’s?
The real scandal is that he has invited a man sacked twice from the Cabinet and with grave questions over his personal and political integrity to come back for a third chance to drag this country through the mud.
THE Labour-supporting Observer yesterday gave us its searingly honest verdict on the economic crisis.
It slammed Gordon Brown’s claim that the slump was made in America and screamed: “It’s your recession, Mr Brown. Deal with it.”
The paper went on to attack Mr Brown for a reckless spending and borrowing spree based on fragile house prices and a badly regulated City.
“The credit crunch may have started abroad,” it says. “But it was custom-made to hurt Britain.” Ouch!
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