**Business Secretary Lord Mandelson has confirmed he had wanted to become the EU’s first “foreign secretary”.**The High Representative for External Affairs post went to Lady Ashton.
Lord Mandelson denied he was blocked from the job by President Sarkozy - telling the BBC he never got close enough to getting the job to be vetoed.
He told Radio 4’s Today he was committed to the government but “in other circumstances I would have liked to have done that job”.
His departure would have been a significant blow for Mr Brown and taken as a sign that senior Labour figures had given up on the next election.