Blair's Man in Brussels

British M.P. and former Cabinet Minister Peter Mandelson has a lot of enemies, but he has one very old and dear friend: Prime Minister Tony Blair, who last week named him the U.K.'s representative on the European Commission. Of Mandelson's talents and aptitude for the job there is little doubt. He is one of the Labour Party's most passionate pro-Europeans and a principal architect of the party's 1980s makeover from an unpopular assemblage of hapless lefties to the formidable centrist vote-getting machine it became under Blair. But he is also Machiavellian and polarizing. He has had to quit the Cabinet twice, first in 1998 when he failed to disclose a loan from another Minister, then again in 2001 when he was alleged to have intervened improperly to secure a passport for a foreign businessman. An inquiry into the latter episode subsequently cleared him of any wrongdoing, but last week opposition from senior Labour figures still kept Blair from offering Mandelson what he really wanted: another job in the Cabinet.

Seeing him shipped off to Brussels is a bonus for Mandelson's detractors. Is it smart for Blair? Inside the Brussels labyrinth, Mandelson should be good at pushing Blair's brand of reform — less regulation and more transparency. But Blair's biggest European problem is at home: the referendum he has promised on the E.U. constitution, likely to be held no sooner than 2006. Britain's highly Euro-skeptic voters will make this a seriously uphill fight, and one of Mandelson's key jobs will be to help lead it. Opponents of the constitution say: Bring him on. "Who better to put the case for the European constitution than a discredited politician whose name is a byword for lies and spin?" asks Neil O'Brien, campaign director for Vote No. A more immediate problem for Blair is a by-election for Mandelson's parliamentary seat, which may give the antiwar Liberal Democrats another chance to exploit unhappiness with Iraq to overturn a large Labour majority. Blair, who's now on summer holiday, is betting that his controversial friend's third time in high office will be lucky.