Lord Mandelson has become the guarantor of the Brown Government’s new Labour credentials. This is as important as his other, more familiar roles as indispensable adviser, suave and unflappable spokesman and, of course, Business Secretary.

At a time when many Blairites are openly disaffected from the Brown regime, the presence of Lord Mandelson makes it harder to argue that the Government has watered down new Labour policies.

His influence can be seen throughout yesterday’s 127-page statement, a mixture of an economic recovery plan, a draft legislative programme and first draft of Labour’s election manifesto. His main input is on strategy in rolling meetings that Mr Brown holds with him, Ed Balls, his longstanding confidant, the irrepressible Baroness Vadera and civil servants such as Jeremy Heywood, Permanent Secretary at No 10.

Lord Mandelson yesterday claimed to be spending 80 per cent of his time in his department, though some insiders would say the figure is nearer 50 per cent, with the rest in Downing Street or on the phone. He has sought both to apply discipline to Mr Brown’s notoriously confused way of making decisions and to craft the new political strategy, or narrative.

As Lord Mandelson set out in interviews yesterday, the strategy has four parts: first, reducing the impact of the recession by a big short-term boost to housebuilding and a job and training guarantee for under-25s; second, preparing the economy for sustained recovery by backing new technologies (Lord M’s particular focus); third, shifting from national targets to enforceable rights in public services; and, fourth, repeatedly seeking to draw a dividing line with the Tories over public spending (10 per cent cuts and so on).

The Brown-Mandelson theme for the election is: we have got you through the recession and we can now promise both reform of public services and higher spending than the Tories.

Of course, there are big flaws. National targets are unpopular but new public rights mean little without, as the Blairites argue, the creation of more choice and competition in the provision of services (now barely mentioned by ministers).

The extra spending on housing is being financed by shifts from elsewhere. That may work in the short term, but Mr Brown argues that decisions on long-term spending plans for 2011 onwards cannot be decided now because of uncertainties over the economic outlook. Hence the spending review will not be held until next year, after the election. But, as David Cameron and Nick Clegg fairly argue, Mr Brown refused to acknowledge the extent of the fiscal crisis and the soaring level of borrowing.

Mañana is an unacceptable defence with big decisions deferred. Despite all the talk about the long-term, the sole priority is the election.

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