When, in August, Peter Mandelson found himself at the same restaurant – the Taverna Agni, on the Greek island of Corfu – as the shadow chancellor George Osborne, the unlikely meeting was “by chance, not by choice”. Contrary to reports, the dinner, with 20 others, did not involve Mandelson “pouring poison” about Gordon Brown into Osborne’s ear (though Osborne attacked certain senior Tories, according to some of those present). Instead, the two politicians, who had spent little time together before, discussed approaches to effecting and managing change in their respective parties.
Unlike Osborne, who has spoken to several journalists about the dinner since then, Mandelson is reluctant to reveal the substance of what he considers to be a private conversation. But in his interview with the New Statesman last week he did give a hint of his verdict. “[The Tories] have managed to change their image rather quickly . . . but I don’t think they have done the equivalent major changes [as we did] and I don’t think they have carried the party entirely with them.”
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