A Blairite MP has called on the prime minister to find a role for Peter Mandelson.

Shaun Woodward believes there must be a way for the former Northern Ireland secretary to re-enter top level politics.

Mandelson, who was sacked after the Hinduja passport affair, was instrumental in wooing Woodward to Labour in 1999.

The St Helens South MP believes that the prime minister should utilise the former cabinet minister's talents.

"I think Peter Mandelson is one of the most gifted and original thinkers in contemporary British politics," Woodward told ePolitix.com.

"He is extraordinarily able and it must be possible to find a way for the government to use those talents."

The call comes amid speculation that Tony Blair is considering giving Mandelson a top job away from the Westminster spotlight.

Labour insiders suggest Mandelson could be set to take over as one of Britain's two European commissioners when Neil Kinnock retires.

Woodward, the MP for St Helens South, also hits back at media hostility to his defection to the Labour Party.

"The hostility is there if you read the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph but if you actually work in my constituency and you're able to help thousands of people - which we've done, it doesn't feel like that at all, in fact the opposite," he said.

"The truth is the Mail and Telegraph serve a political purpose in our national polity - they represent the Conservative Party's interest. They're pretty angry that somebody who was, in their eyes, going to be a significant figure in the Conservative Party said actually I don't want to be in this party, because it's an unfair party, it's misguided and wrong, it doesn't represent Britain's interests and I want to be in the Labour Party."

The married MP also vowed to overcome intense media criticism and on-going speculation about his own private life.

"What you don't have to be is obsessed by it, they may be obsessed by me but I don't have to be obsessed by them," he said.

"I'm just going to get on with doing my job of being the most effective MP for my constituents, do the best job I can and at the end of the day on the back of that deliver for people. That's how I think one will be judged."

He said one of the "unfortunate dimensions of being in politics is the relentless number of times you find yourself subject to all kinds of diary stories".

"I don't think that improves politics. It may be good tittle tattle for some but at the end of the day I don't think improves the esteem of politicians and indeed of journalists that we spend so much time on these things," he said.

The MP suggests that all politicians are entitled to privacy and argues that Alan Duncan's gay admission was evidence of how much further society had to go on the issue of homosexuality.

"I think everyone is entitled to privacy and I think everyone is entitled to a private life even politicians," he insists.

"I think it is a sign of our disrespect for individuals and how we aren't actually comfortable with ourselves as a society in some ways that we feel this need to dwell on individual's private lives."

Speaking about the Tory frontbenchers decision to "out" himself, Woodward said: "I think on the one hand it's brave but I think on the other hand its rather sad that we still live in a society where people feel the need to come out and make those sort of statements".

"No one comes out and says 'I'm straight'. But the fact someone has to come out and announce their sexuality because they are not straight seems to be a reflection really on the distance we still have to go," he told this website.