Whelan laughs off wizard's curse
Before being ousted from Tony Blair's Cabinet, Peter Mandelson developed a formidable reputation at Westminster as the Labour Party's finest spin doctor. Now it appears that the flamboyant ex-Northern Ireland Minister and Brazilian boyfriend Reinaldo da Silva enjoyed the services of a real Brazilian wizard. The pair visited Jose Lima da Silva, 33, a witch doctor and priest in the Candomble cult, a mystical Brazilian sect that worships African gods, on a recent trip to Brazil. According to the Mail on Sunday newspaper, Mandelson took part in a voodoo ceremony in which a chicken was sacrificed. Da Silva wrote to the wizard enclosing a picture of Gordon Brown's former spin doctor Charlie Whelan, asking the priest to stop him 'doing bad things to harm the political career of my friend Peter'. Mandelson's boyfriend also requested that Whelan should be made to 'disappear' from politics and, if possible, Britain too. Whelan, who makes no secret of his detestation of Mandelson, laughed off the hex which da Silva, a student in London, had attempted to place on him. 'I'm enjoying my life and everything is going very well, thank you very much,' said Whelan, whose lucrative media work for the BBC and newspapers has netted him more than double his salary as a spin doctor. But just eight days after da Silva's letter was sent in October 1999, there was some good news for Mandelson. He was restored to the Cabinet as Northern Ireland Secretary after he was forced to leave over his secret £373,000 loan to buy a home from ex-Treasury Minster Geoffrey Robinson. Since then, however, Mandelson has been forced to leave the Cabinet for a second time amid questions over his involvement in the Hinduja passports affair. Apparently his 'spiritual protection' had expired by then.