I worked with Peter in one way or another for about ten years, with two intensive periods between Spring 1996 and Summer 1998 (when he became Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and so had less of a role in campaigning and communications) and then (what seemed like) the Indian Summer of the 2004 Hartlepool  byelection.

Peter, above all, is a Labour man. The party is in his blood. He is a tribalist - but more than that - he's good at it too.

He's also fearless and never afraid to tell you what he thinks - over the years that has wound up more than a few of the great and the good who have felt insufficient homage has been paid. Well, they had to get over themselves.

Of course Peter, like the rest of us, has made is mistakes. But nothing that means he isn't anything but an asset for Labour in a moment of crisis.

Bring it on.

Oh - and what's not to like? Well, for a start all those people who call Peter Mandelson "Mandy" a name made up by a particularly vile Lib Dem supporting hack in an effort to diminish a gay man in the usual way employed by school ground bullies - so can we drop that?