Mandy has competition

From the Brussels Insider blog I stumble across this rather interesting snippet on the busy life of our new trade commissioner. (That's Baroness Ashton, by the way. Looks like an anteater sucking on a lemon and has no real experience of international trade.):

Digging a bit deeper, however, we see that she has indeed done a couple of things since then. She was at a conference in Brussels on 28 October, then then she spoke to a bunch of Russian industrialists in Cannes on 13 November – a meeting that would have been organised when everybody thought that Peter Mandelson was still the Commissioner.

"Peter where do you want to meet up with some Russian industrialists?"

"Oh I don't know, shall we go to Corfu?"

"No, Peter, that was your summer holiday, and it has to take place in France – they do hold the Presidency, you know".

"Well, I guess it will have to be Cannes then. After all, how am I going to get invited on their yachts if we do it inland?"

We wonder if the baroness went on any of their yachts? How they must be missing Peter!

Why was the Trade Commissioner Elect sucking up to Russian squillionaires? Mandy must have given her a thorough handover if the whispers from my Russian friends are correct.