We are wary of anything that looks suspicious.”Alan Leaman, Senior Associate Director of Hill and Knowlton Public Affairs, said that Mr Mandelson’s admittance that he misled the public and parliament will have “raised a question mark about his judgement”.Mr Leaman said: “It means that people will be rather cautious. He would be wise to take a fair gap between holding office and undertaking a new career There must be a space between him and the Government. But he clearly is a talented man.”Peter Mandelson’s friends said that the former minister would miss politics but would flourish in another field.Robert Harris, the millionaire author, said that Mr Mandelson was “quite a cultured man” and would survive a life outside politics should he wish to change career.Mr Mandelson said yesterday that he wishes to bow out of the public eye and media scrutiny. “I want to remove myself from the countless stories of controversy, of feuds, of divisions and all the rest, all the other stories that have surrounded me.”I want in other words, to lead a more normal life, both in politics and in the future outside,” he said.However, friends were last night speculating that the former cabinet minister, an ardent pro-European, may still play a pivotal role in the campaign for a “yes” vote on a referendum on the single currency.. If Peter Mandelson was ever to pull off a second comeback, he would be joining a true political élite. If Peter Mandelson was ever to pull off a second comeback, he would be joining a true political élite.
Only one politician has ever resigned from the Cabinet twice and managed to regain a cabinet post for the third time: Winston Churchill.

But his record is one Mr Mandelson, despite his ambition and survival skills, is unlikely to emulate History and statistics tell against him. Churchill had to join a rival political party and fight a world war on his journey into the record books as the only man to hold three cabinet posts after two spells in the political wilderness.Over the past 100 years, only a small handful of politicians have returned to a senior political post after twice walking out. In modern times, only Cecil Parkinson has twice recovered from resignation. After resigning as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he fathered a child with his mistress, Sara Keys, Margaret Thatcher kept him in the cold for four years. When she won her third election in 1987, he was back, this time as Secretary of State for Energy.In 1990, he resigned again, leaving his post as Secretary of State for Transport in protest at Mrs Thatcher’s leadership defeat.

It took a further seven years, and the election of William Hague as leader of the Tories, for him to see power again when the new leader appointed him as Conservative Party chairman.Since then, however, only Tony Banks and Clare Short can claim to have found ministerial posts after resigning twice from frontbench positions. Mr Banks, who resigned as sports minister ostensibly to fight to become London mayor, had walked out of posts as social security spokesman and party whip during Labour’s years in opposition.Ms Short, now Secretary of State for International Development, resigned as an employment spokeswoman over Northern Ireland and deputy social security spokeswoman over her criticisms of party policy.. “We will have a fight on our hands,” Tony Blair told Peter Mandelson yesterday morning as they discussed whether he should resign as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Mr Mandelson replied: “I am not up for the fight. It is time to pull stumps.”

“We will have a fight on our hands,” Tony Blair told Peter Mandelson yesterday morning as they discussed whether he should resign as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Mr Mandelson replied: “I am not up for the fight. It is time to pull stumps.”
Last night close friends of Mr Mandelson said he did “not have the stomach” to fight to keep his job because of his long-running personal feud with Gordon Brown, the Chancellor. They insisted this was a factor in his decision to quit after he issued a misleading statement over his role in helping the Indian businessman Srichand Hinduja secure a British passport.When Mr Mandelson spoke to Alastair Campbell, Mr Blair’s press secretary, on Sunday, most of their conversation was devoted to how to respond to a newspaper story about Mr Mandelson’s battle with Mr Brown rather than the article which caused his downfall.Mr Mandelson and Mr Campbell were deeply troubled by a story on page two of The Sunday Times, saying Mr Mandelson was trying to “poison the mind” of Mr Blair by claiming Mr Brown had done a poor job in preparing Labour for the general election.Both Mr Mandelson and Mr Campbell feared that other newspapers would follow up the story, sparking yet another round of articles about the Mandelson-Brown rift as the two men prepared to run Labour’s election campaign.Remarkably, they touched only briefly on a story on page one of The Observer, revealing Mr Mandelson’s role in Srichand Hinduja’s passport application in the same year that he and his brother Gopichand gave £1m to the Dome’s Faith Zone.It was in the middle of the previous week that Mr Mandelson had been reminded of his relationship with the Indian businessmen.

While he was immersed in the latest attempt to breathe new life into the Northern Ireland peace process, a note from the Home Office arrived attaching a proposed answer to a written question by the Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker – a tenacious politician who Mr Mandelson complains “has been stalking me for years.”Mr Mandelson immediately “ticked off” the Home Office answer confirming that he had made inquiries about how an application for citizenship by Mr Hinduja might be viewed, given a change in the Government’s immigration policy.He thought nothing more about the Hinduja brothers until Saturday, when The Observer contacted him about its story linking his inquiry to the Home Office with the brothers’ £1m Dome donation. Mr Mandelson and his aides drew up a statement which, he now knows with the benefit of hindsight, played a critical role in his resignation. It said his contact with the Home Office was done by his civil service private secretary and, crucially, omitted the fact that he had telephoned Mike O’Brien, who was then Immigration minister.Mr Mandelson told friends yesterday that he simply forgot the two-minute call to Mr O’Brien, insisting he had not meant to deceive by leaving it out of his statement. He reflected: “Everyone thinks that everything I say is part of a cover-up, part of an attempt to conceal the truth. It isn’t, I am afraid the truth is very boring.”Allies are convinced he would still be in the Cabinet if only he had mentioned the chat with Mr O’Brien in his statement at the weekend As one said: “It wasn’t what he did over the Hindujas That was innocuous. It was the way he handled it from the weekend onwards.”Mr Mandelson forgot the lesson of the controversy over a £1m donation to Labour by the Formula One boss, Bernie Ecclestone, after which he admitted the Government should have revealed all the facts quickly to limit the damage.

In the past few days, his judgement over his private actions was again less acute than his political antennae, just as it was over the home loan that caused his resignation in 1998.On Sunday, Mr Campbell did not ask Mr Mandelson whether he had any contact with Mr O’Brien; he had no reason to doubt the statement he had issued. As a result, the Mandelson statement also provided the basis for Downing Street’s briefing for Westminster journalists at 11am on Monday and the briefing given to Chris Smith, the Culture Secretary, who was answering Commons questions that afternoon.Mr Smith’s remarks were important because they compounded Downing Street’s inaccurate remarks to the press; misleading Parliament is a serious offence which often forces the guilty minister to resign.On Monday night, Mr Campbell was told by a Home Office official that Mr O’Brien recalled the telephone conversation that Mr Mandelson had apparently forgotten. A trawl by the Home Office found a note, dated 2 July 1998, logging the call.It is understood that the Home Office note did little more than mention that Mr Mandelson had called Mr O’Brien. Publishing it – against all Whitehall precedent – would not necessarily have saved Mr Mandelson’s skin because it would not have proved that he did not put any pressure on the Immigration minister to grant to Mr Hinduja a passport.On Monday evening, there were hasty conversations involving Mr Campbell, Mr Mandelson and Mr O’Brien. They agreed, inevitably, that Mr Campbell should set the record straight when he met lobby journalists on Tuesday morning. Their jaws dropped when Mr Campbell revealed the fateful telephone conversation between Mr Mandelson and Mr O’Brien. The press pack scented blood; alarm bells began ringing in Downing Street.Mr Mandelson then compounded his problems during a frantic round of television interviews.