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		Peter Mandelson and the Six Young Men Lincolnshire Echo - October 12 2004 Tony Blair likes to say that politics is about making tough choices. Here's one I had to make on Monday October 4th. In the European parliament, we're currently having hearings for the new EU Commissioners, who are expected to take up their new appointments in November. Each would-be Commissioner has to spend three hours being grilled by the parliamentary committee with which he (or she) will be working. Some of them have not had an easy ride. Italian Rocco Buttiglioni was narrowly voted down in the Civil Liberties committee because he takes a traditional Catholic view of marriage and homosexuality. Arguably the process is a waste of time, because although individual committees can express a view, the full parliament can only vote on the new Commission as a whole, and is unlikely to vote them down. Nevertheless, the hearings provide an opportunity to sound out the candidates, and perhaps to embarrass them. On the Monday in question, we had the hearing for our very own Peter Mandelson. Obviously confident of the outcome, he has already found himself a plush Brussels pad, in the Street of Six Young Men (seriously -- I'm not making this up!). But the reason I had to make a tough choice was this: should I go to Brussels in the hope of asking Mandelson a difficult question? Or should I go to the Conservative Party Conference in Bournemouth, which just happened to be on the same day? Now everyone knows what a straight, upright sort of chap Peter Mandelson is, so no one would ever suspect him of arranging his hearing on a day when he could be sure that all Conservative MEPs would be somewhere else, would they? I'm sure it was just a coincidence. Just like I'm sure pigs fly. So I'm afraid I decided to miss Mandelson, and do the Party Conference instead. But as we all heard afterwards, Mandelson distinguished himself at the hearing by his clear grasp of his portfolio -- and by the fact that he declined to confirm that he would work to protect the British rebate. In a classic piece of Mandelsonian evasion, he failed to answer the question. I've been to each Conservative Party Conference since 1998, and I have to say that this one was the best I can remember. For my own part, I spoke at a couple of fringe meetings, a Bruges Group meeting with Lord Lamont on Monday, and a Freedom Association meeting on the Wednesday morning. My message at both meetings was the same: that we must oppose the European Constitution, which would take everything that's wrong with the EU (and believe me, there's a lot wrong with the EU!) and set it in stone. And we must renegotiate the terms of our EU membership. I fully support the Party's plans to take back our fisheries, and our foreign aid, and to reject the "social chapter" that Blair's government so foolishly signed up to. But I think we should go further than the party's current plans. As John Redwood has said, we need to look again at the Single Market, which is failing to deliver, and is piling excessive regulation on British business. I believe that we need a new relationship with the EU based solely on free trade and voluntary intergovernmental co-operation. That is the only way to build a prosperous, democratic, competitive Europe. And it is essential if Britain is to remain an independent, self-governing country. The high point of the Conference was undoubtedly Michael Howard's speech on the Tuesday. Although he was clear on the European issue, he recognises that Europe is not the top issue for many voters, and he focussed on the issues that really matter to most people. He promised more police, cleaner hospitals, school discipline, controlled immigration -- and lower taxes. And above all, he offered accountability. We won't go into the general elections like Labour, with vague promises that no one will believe. Instead, we will offer a clear and specific programme of action in the first days, weeks and months of a Conservative government. And we will invite the people of Britain to hold us to those commitments. Because we intend to deliver.