THE incredible Peter Mandelson scandal is still unfolding on both sides of the Atlantic, and, together with last week’s seismic Manchester by-election, is increasingly likely to force Keir Starmer’s resignation as British prime minister.

It is striking that the early stages of the hugely ambitious Mandelson’s career plan involved securing the post of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, which once enjoyed a significantly higher profile but has since largely disappeared off the political radar.

Although I have previously written in this column about the enormous spotlight which followed Mandelson during his time in Belfast, many of those who held the same job down the years also used to be familiar faces from the front line of UK politics.

With no disrespect to the present incumbent, Hilary Benn, he could take a lunchtime stroll from NIO headquarters on Chichester Street past the nearby City Hall and almost no-one would recognise him.

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The shortage of people generally walking through the centre of Belfast is a question for another day.

The prominence of secretaries of state has obviously declined since the height of the Troubles, but, even in the years after the Good Friday Agreement, the role was still taken seriously on both sides of the Irish Sea for a prolonged period.

Mo Mowlam was regularly identified in opinion polls as the most popular UK politician of her era, and given an unprecedented standing ovation by delegates when she was named in passing by Tony Blair during his leader’s speech at the 1998 Labour Party conference.

Blair, who, as a comprehensive Channel 4 three-part documentary confirmed last month, had a ruthless side to his nature, immediately decided she was a threat to his own standing, and transferred her to relative obscurity as minister for the cabinet office.

Mandelson replaced her in Hillsborough Castle, believing that it would provide him with a stepping stone to become foreign secretary, and might well have been proved correct had he not been forced out over one of his many indiscretions, on that occasion involving claims that he attempted to influence a passport application for a wealthy Indian businessman.

The next three Labour figures to follow him, John Reid, Paul Murphy and Peter Hain, all had fairly solid cabinet CVs, with only the appointment of the less well-known Shaun Woodward in 2007 an indication of declining importance.

However, it took the return to power of the Conservatives in 2010 to confirm beyond doubt that successive Westminster administrations were almost entirely disinterested in developments at Stormont, even if it took the DUP a remarkable amount of time to work out the way the wind was blowing.

The first Tory choice back then was Owen Paterson, noted for wearing wristbands linked to British Army veterans, who took the appalling decision not to extend the PSNI’s policy of 50/50 recruitment between Catholics and Protestants, something which is still haunting the service. He later resigned from the House of Commons after being found to have breached paid advocacy rules.

We then had Theresa Villers, whose preoccupation was campaigning robustly against the EU; James Brokenshire, who sadly suffered ill health and died prematurely; and Karen Bradley, remembered for expressing puzzlement that nationalists did not vote for unionist parties.

Next came Julian Smith, who deserves an honourable mention for helping to restore devolution in 2020, before he was abruptly dismissed by Boris Johnson for expressing well-founded concerns over the implications for Northern Ireland of a no-deal Brexit, followed by Brandon Lewis, who caused consternation over his endorsement of a bill on EU withdrawal which he acknowledged was in breach of international law, but apparently only in a “specific and limited way”.

Shailesh Vara then broke records by staying for less than two months before he was removed without explanation by Liz Truss, allowing us to be introduced to Chris Heaton-Harris, who declared in 2023 that full funding would be obtained for Casement Park, through the memorable but slightly less than reliable prediction: “We’ll get the money, don’t you worry.”

Having had at least some dealings with every secretary of state since Jim Prior, apart from Vara, who effectively had no time to unpack his suitcase before he was gone, and Benn, it seems to me that an unmistakeable pattern has emerged.

Both of the main Westminster parties used to send relative heavyweights to Belfast, but, over the last two decades, with a couple of exceptions, candidates have, to put it mildly, been drawn from much further down the pecking order.

The message this sends out can hardly be regarded as encouraging by unionists.

n.doran@irishnews.com

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