When Peter Mandelson was appointed by Tony Blair - the man he calls 'my friend' - to be Britain’s EU Commissioner, the Prime Minister promised that we would see the calibre of the man.

Well, we have. But not, I think, in the way the Prime Minister meant.
Our disgraced former Northern Ireland and former Trade Secretary has not even been in his post for a year, but he has already managed to turn himself into one of the most unpopular men in Brussels, with a soaring reputation for incompetence, bluster and spin.

Uniquely, he has become a bogey figure to pro and anti-Europeans while triggering trade disputes between the EU, China and America.

I have worked in Brussels for nearly five years and I happily describe myself as pro-European. But I am critical of most aspects of the EU as it now conducts itself. And the behaviour of Peter Mandelson as Trade Commissioner typifies what is wrong with the existing EU.

It is run by and for an arrogant elite which has at heart not the interests of the public but the furtherance of its obsession with ever closer union and the defence of an outdated, uncompetitive, inefficient economic model.

The latest row - the so-called 'Bra Wars' - over the importation of cheap Chinese textiles into Europe, is a case in point.

When he took up his new postion at the beginning of the year, Mr Mandelson stressed his life-long commitment to free trade. As recently as May, he wrote that 'open markets are a precondition for growth, and growth is essential to development.'

In that spirit, he rightly acted in January to lift the restrictions which the EU had long had in place on imports of textiles manufactured in China.

The consequence was entirely to be expected. European retailers hired Chinese manufacturers to make the clothes which are sold in the high street at dramatically reduced cost. That is the very point of free trade - the most efficient manufacturers benefit, and the less efficient businesses have to reduce their costs, find an alternative market or close down.

Yet within a matter of months, the supposedly pro-free trade Mr Mandelson had re-imposed a series of quotas on precisely those imports, for no other reason than to protect inefficient and costly European - for which read, in the main, French - clothing manufacturers which found they were suffering the consequences of their inefficiency.

To make matters worse, Mr Mandelson has responded with his trademark insouciant arrogance to the growing outrage from retailers - including Marks & Spencer, John Lewis, Debenhams, BHS and many smaller businesses - some of whom face catastrophic consequences if they cannot get their hands on the stock they've ordered from China, Speaking on the BBC yesterday, he dismissed the seizure by customs authorities of 48 million sweaters,17 million pairs of men's trousers, 3million bras and 4m T-shirts as 'a glitch'.

The fact that Mr Mandelson was prepared to venture onto the BBC to make a comment, could, I suppose, be viewed as progress. As his decision to impose quotas has blown into a full scale crisis with a series of angry meetings between EU and Chinese officials, he has spent the past fortnight sunning himself on Italy's Amalfi coast. He has ignored all requests from the representatives of those firms facing financial hardship to meet with him.

Indeed, Sunday newspapers showed him relaxing at an outdoor concert in Pompeii, seemingly unconcerned that his actions have plunged retailers into the 'worst crisis since the Second World war.'

Today he returns to work in Brussels, and is expected to reveal his proposals to deal with the problem. But there is a further crisis pending and one whose impact threatens to dwarf the row over the import of Chinese textiles - a trade war between the EU and the US.

Again it is of Mr Mandelon's making. Since long before his arrival on the scene, the two trading blocs have been in a bitter dispute over the level of subsidy given to Airbus, the European aircraft manufacturers. Mr Mandelson’s job is to try to settle it. Instead, he has made things far worse.

The former US Trade Representative, Robert Zoellick (now US deputy secretary of state) claimed that Mr Mandelson had, typically, not been frank with him in conversations about the EU’s subsidies to Airbus.

In one conversation, Mr Zoellick said to Mandelson 'You don’t have to spin'
- before slamming down the phone.

It is one thing not being frank about a home loan. Not being frank in the midst of delicate negotiations about international trade is, however, of a different order of magnitude.

Mr Mandelson must, of course, take responsibility for his own actions. But it must also be remembered why it is that we are stuck with him as Trade Commissioner - and that is because of Tony Blair’s loyalty to his disgraced ex-minister.

Loyalty is usually to be commended - but not when it is as misplaced as this.