{"id":750678,"date":"2026-02-08T13:54:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T13:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/750678\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T13:54:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T13:54:16","slug":"sam-mcbride-history-will-take-a-dim-view-of-peter-mandelson-the-man-but-may-be-kinder-to-his-achievements-in-northern-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/750678\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam McBride: History will take a dim view of Peter Mandelson the man, but may be kinder to his achievements in Northern Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-91174671_secondary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom4 beltel-1d70522a_marginleft0 beltel-1d70522a_marginright0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">Suspending Stormont in February 2000 was a key moment in country\u2019s history\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A beleaguered Peter Mandelson is now facing a police probe\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/089351c7-d912-4419-a29c-5b8679ad2e53.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_caption1 beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_secondary beltel-66f0fec7_regular beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_marginleft0 beltel-1d70522a_marginright0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop3 beltel-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">A beleaguered Peter Mandelson is now facing a police probe<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">In Yes, Prime Minister, the timeless TV satire of British politics, prime minister Jim Hacker defined his job as \u201cthe only member of the Government who can\u2019t be sent to Northern Ireland next week\u201d. \u200b<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The line got laughs because it reflected perfectly then, as now, how the post of Northern Ireland secretary is seen in politics: the lowest of the low. In one sense, the reasons are obvious: Northern Ireland represents less than 3% of the UK population and the Northern Ireland Office has scant political power and few officials; it now has about 150 staff, compared with 50,000 for the home secretary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Suspending Stormont in February 2000 was a key moment in country\u2019s history A beleaguered Peter Mandelson is now&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":750679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5011],"tags":[2204,1144,6410,16,15],"class_list":["post-750678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-northern-ireland","tag-jeffrey-epstein","tag-northern-ireland","tag-sam-mcbride","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116035352326151667","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=750678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/750679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}