The Tories claim that Northern Ireland secretary Peter Mandelson is after John Prescott's job at the DETR, indicated by articles and speeches made by Mandelson on local government. Archie Norman, shadow environment secretary, claimed that Mandelson was showing a previously unseen "passion for local government" and that this meant that the man once described by Prescott as a "crab" had got his eyes on the "deputy prime minster's foundering empire."