Peter Mandelson, PC is a British Labour party politician who was a member of parliament for Hartlepool. He held cabinet positions under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and was European commissioner. He was a key architect in the rebranding of the Labour Party as “New Labour” and its subsequent landslide victory in the 1997 general elections. He was made a life peer and took his seat in the House of Lords. He attended the Edinburgh book festival to discuss his book ‘The Third Man’