Mandelson plans list of firms to save from bankruptcy



Company data such as the number of employees, the importance of the firm's research and development and its performance were likely to be factors in deciding which businesses should be given government aid.

A paper reflecting Mandelson's thinking was presented on Thursday to the national economic council, the government's economic war cabinet. The move comes as a Guardian/ICM poll reveals that the Tories have extended their lead over Labour to 15 points, putting them on 45% and Labour on 30%. This is despite overall voter approval for the government's handling of the economic crisis.

In the remarkably frank interview Mandelson said he did not know why Gordon Brown had asked him to return to the cabinet. "People ask me why I have come back. The true answer is that it was such a bold and surprising invitation that it would have seemed churlish not to accept it. I had no inkling," he said.

He also said he had urged the prime minister to give a role to other important Blairites currently on the backbenches, and said he saw his role as acting as a healer in ending the conflict between Blairites and Brownites.

"I felt in the autumn ... New Labour and the party were approaching something akin to a political nervous breakdown and I felt my role was to bring people together," he said. "I am no longer the chief courtier of the prime minister as I was with Tony. But the main reason is that - without knowing quite how - I seem to have stabilised people. I have made it possible to calm nerves ... and make people feel they can sit round the same table again without thinking themselves as Blairite or Brownite."

Mandelson saved his most effusive praise for Brown: "Internationally people say to me your prime minister has been transformed. His standing has soared. People really do look to him like some Moses figure who is going to lead them away from this economic mess to the promised land," he said.

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