A View From The Foothills

by Chris Mullin

  A Soviet defector has identified an 87-year-old woman living in Bexley as a spy. The security service has known about it for years, but neglected to inform ministers. The Prime Minister only found out yesterday as the newspapers went to press. An ideal moment to press my campaign for parliamentary scrutiny of the intelligence services. Alas, however, I am sworn to silence – and impotence. I must concentrate on privatising air traffic control and keep my nose out of matters that no longer come within my remit.

  Monday, 13 September

  Paul Taylor, a local journalist, called in to see me with a recently retired regional crime squad detective. Their purpose was to convince me – which they succeeded in doing – that the police weren’t trying hard enough to catch a villain who has defrauded a number of gullible (and in some cases villainous) local citizens out of several million pounds. The ex-policeman asked about the Birmingham Six case. I replied that I knew it was an article of faith among the police that they were all really guilty. ‘I don’t know about that,’ he said. Adding, ‘You’ve no idea what impact you’ve had on the way the police work.’ In the seventies, he said, it was commonplace for policemen to write up their notebooks days after the event. No one ever checked. Since the Birmingham and Guildford cases, everything had changed.

  Let’s hope so.

  To London on the 6.43 a.m. Jessica is back from her holiday. Things are looking up: she called me ‘Chris’ instead of ‘Minister’ when we talked on the phone this afternoon.

  Bill Deedes has a story in today’s Telegraph saying that Kosovo is littered with unexploded cluster bombs. A large number of people, many of them children, have been injured so far and many more casualties are expected. The problem could go on for years. Exactly as I predicted to The Man – and George Robertson and Robin Cook – at the start of the war. Were I still on the parliamentary committee, I could confront him with it, but of course such matters are now far outside my remit. I must be silent. What a useless specimen I have become.

  Tuesday, 14 September

  Lunch with the British Airports Authority top brass, which included Des Wilson, founder of the charity Shelter. It was preceded by a briefing which revealed that demand for air services is growing at an astonishing rate, especially in the south-east, which accounts for about 80 per cent of traffic (although no one wants an airport in their backyard, of course). By 2015, even assuming that terminal five is built at Heathrow, all the main airports will be choked to capacity with no prospect of further expansion. Until now it seems to have been a case of Predict and Provide. Exactly the mess we have got ourselves into with the motor car. Sooner or later politicians are going to have to pluck up the courage to call a halt. Needless to say the airport fraternity won’t be satisfied until they have concreted over every blade of grass. Des Wilson (once a great radical, now a corporate fat cat) seemed to think that the right to cheap holidays took precedence over all other considerations. He bleated about all the business we would lose. So be it. One day we shall have to go back to being peasants. There are times when I think it can’t come soon enough.

  Among the papers which crossed my desk today a note from Jack Straw to the Prime Minister saying that the number of asylum seekers had reached ‘unprecedented levels’ (80,000 so far this year). He says there are hundreds more camped out at Calais waiting to cross and asks for emergency measures to tide him over until the Asylum Bill becomes law. He wants special detention centres run by prison staff, and a visa regime imposed on Croatia, the Czech Republic and (possibly) Poland. Also, transit visas for Colombians. The world outside Fortress Europe is disintegrating. If this goes on, we shall need a new Berlin wall to protect the fortunate from the depredations of the destitute. Will Europe be overwhelmed in the end? As Rome was by the barbarians.

  JP has overruled my decision – one of the few I have so far been asked to make – to approve the line that officials were proposing to take in negotiation with Pakistan Airlines about slots at Manchester airport.

  He just wrote ‘No’ on the memorandum without explanation and attempts to discover his reasons have so far proved unsuccessful. Which poses a problem because the official concerned is already in Pakistan trying to negotiate. Jessica says this is a fairly common occurrence. The odds are that by the time JP has been tracked down, he will have forgotten why he intervened in the first place. So, for the time being, officials are sticking to the line that I approved.

  Wednesday, 15 September

  Up at 6 a.m. and to Cheltenham to address 150 councillors on rural development. Then back to London for a meeting with Gwyneth Dunwoody about air traffic control. Keith Hill and a couple of officials were also present. Gwyneth was affable, but uncompromising. With magnificent aplomb she brushed aside our feeble attempts to justify the government’s plans. Were any of us to appear before her committee in our present state of unreadiness, she would reduce us to mincemeat. A useful wake-up call for all concerned. There is much work to be done, if we are to emerge from this alive.

  Jessica has heard back from the government car service. Magnanimously they have agreed to reduce their standing charge from £700 to £400 a week. Still an outrage. I favour cancelling forthwith, but Jessica says we must wait to see whether Michael Meacher will take on the Nissan car reserved for me so that they have no excuse for selling it and charging us depreciation, which they are itching to do.

  Thursday, 16 September

  To Lancaster House, where among the gold leaf and the painted cherubs Jack Cunningham had organised an induction course for new ministers.

  Lots of sensible advice. ‘Control the diary.’ ‘Don’t take boxes home.’ ‘Big problems don’t necessarily demand big solutions.’ ‘Keep your eye on the big picture.’ Some of the advice bore no relation to my situation. This, for example, from Richard Wilson: ‘Your relationship with the Secretary of State is the key. Your clout will depend on whether you have his confidence.’ That let’s me out, then. Apart from a team meeting three days after I was anointed, I’ve only seen my Secretary of State on TV. Still, I look on the bright side. Jessica says Alan Meale was in and out of JP’s office every five minutes – and a fat lot of good it did him.

  Richard Wilson, who I first came across at the Home Office, is not at all the stereotypical mandarin. A tall, ungainly man with huge ears, a big nose and a mouth that doesn’t seem to co-ordinate with the words coming out of it. He positively enthused about New Labour and its works. ‘This government is focusing on delivery in a way that has never happened before.’ He seemed genuinely committed to diversifying the upper levels of the civil service. Perhaps he was just chanting the slogans of the hour (Jessica says that civil servants are very good at changing their spots), but I don’t think so.

  Among the speakers in the afternoon, Michael Bichard (Permanent Secretary at the Department of Education and Employment). An extraordinary-looking man with tiny eyes, massive forearms, Mick Jagger lips and a scruff of beard on his chin. More like a Canadian lumberjack than a permanent secretary. He has just caused a stir by publicly criticising his colleagues. Apparently, he was brought in from the private sector and so the normal rules don’t apply. He talked of ‘putting pressure on officials to think outside their silos’. Civil servants, he said, were not sufficiently focused on outcomes. ‘They tend to take it for granted that intellect equals creativity, which is often not the case.’

  Finally, we heard from Sir John Kerr of the Foreign Office, the nearest we came to an archetypical mandarin, but even he could hardly suppress his enthusiasm for The Man and all his works. ‘The PM is the big act in Europe. We need to capitalise on that.’ Sir John has been representing our interests in Europe for most of the last decade. ‘In Margaret Thatcher’s day we lurked in the shadows. We won very few battles, except on the single market – I will give her credit for that,’ he said. ‘The trick,’ he continued, ‘was to break up the Franco-German alliance.’ Our strategy had been to forget about the French and get in close to the Germans, knowing that the French would soo
n come running when they found the other two big players lining up against them. According to Sir John, it had worked a treat.

  He was a total, unabashed Europhile. Goodness knows how he survived under Thatcher. He spoke only about Europe, nothing else, making no pretence of sticking to the official line. On the Euro: ‘There is no point in asking, “Will it work?” The point is, it will happen. It’s not going to fall apart. It’s only going to be a problem for one or two peripheral countries like Finland. There is no point,’ he added with a mischievous smirk, ‘in holding a referendum until we were sure that we were going to win.’

  ‘Don’t believe the civil service has been Thatcherised,’ whispered Jeff Rooker afterwards. All very interesting, but so much of what we heard today has little or no relevance to my situation. I am now a figure of absolutely no influence, reconciled to a period of total obscurity. I must sit tight, keep my head down and await rescue.

  Friday, 17 September

  Another day another speech. Today’s was at the Institute of Electrical Engineers. Again, I read slowly with plenty of meaningful pauses. At the end I even felt confident enough to take a few questions. Gradually, I am mastering the art of reading out speeches that someone else has written.

  Michael Meacher has said he doesn’t want my Nissan Primera so it looks as if the government car service are going to try and sting us for £4,000 depreciation for disposing of it. If they dare, I shall threaten a select committee inquiry, which ought to do the trick. They must know as well as I that if ever this nonsense were exposed to the light of day they wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Jessica has written to cancel our contract, which means that they will demand several months’ notice at £400 a week. After that we will be shot of them.

  Home on the 18.30. This weekend I am the duty minister, which means I must be contactable at all times. As a result, the mobile phone and pager have reappeared. Jessica assures me that they are unlikely to be needed. I shall hand them back as soon as my stint is over.

  Saturday, 18 September

  Sunderland

  With Sarah and Emma for our weekend stroll. As instructed, I carried my pager and mobile. Which was just as well. Just as we were admiring the view from a hill above a quarry the pager began to vibrate with a message saying that three people had been killed in an air crash at Luton and would I ring Jessica at home. A panic ensued while I attempted to work the mobile, and then because I didn’t have Jessica’s home number. Eventually I got through to a duty clerk at the Department and he got on to Jessica, who rang me back. It turned out there was nothing to worry about since the Department was just putting out the standard line saying that there would be an inquiry. I bet she only activated the pager to see if I was carrying it.

  Monday, 20 September

  To the office for an hour and then to London on the 10.45. These days I hardly notice the journey. Every minute is taken up with constituency correspondence.

  A brief chat with Bev Hughes, the first since we were appointed. She shares my surprise (and Keith’s) that we have been given so little responsibility. She had been talking to Jacqui Smith at Education, who has her own distinct policy areas. Bev used to be Hilary Armstrong’s Parliamentary Private Secretary and so she is familiar with JP’s way of working. Like me, she has only seen him on TV during the last six weeks. There is, she says, no sense of being part of a team. At the so-called team meetings, which she has been attending for the past year or so, JP just talks all the time. ‘No one dares express a view for fear he will round on them.’ We agreed that, if nothing else, we must keep talking to each other.

  Tuesday, 21 September

  Secretary of State’s office, Eland House

  JP, grim-faced in shirtsleeves, standing near the window. He beckons a minion who meekly follows him out onto the huge balcony where they briefly confer. It soon becomes clear that the reason for this morning’s angst is yet more interference by Downing Street in the business of the Department. Speed limits are the subject of today’s intervention. ‘Every time Number 10 interferes, we’re worse off,’ JP mumbles as we take our seats. His black mood is compounded by the fact that he has come to work this morning wearing shoes that don’t match. We are permitted a brief giggle at this. Towards the end of the meeting the said minion re-appears with a pink plastic bag containing an assortment of shoes, after which all is well.

  JP has no concept of how to get the best out of people. His idea of conferring is to lie slumped in an armchair and deliver, at breakneck speed, a series of diatribes on whatever has hit him on the way into work in the morning. Occasionally he invites the briefest of contributions from one or other of his ministers, who are arranged around him on a circle of easy chairs. Now and then he solicits information from one of the advisers who sit behind us on upright chairs. There is barely time, however, for the interlocutor to complete a single sentence before JP races off again leaving the rest of us scrambling to keep up. Our main role is to laugh sycophantically at his jokes. This is how it must be at the court of Boris Yeltsin.

  We discuss our plans for air traffic control. Or rather JP does. It appears that Downing Street is nervous. One hundred and sixty MPs have signed an early-day motion and the whips are predicting a substantial uprising. JP is anxious that, if there is to be any retreat, it should take place now and not – as he puts it – ‘after we have entered the valley of death’. He and Gus are meeting Gordon Brown later today after which the picture might be clearer. Gordon is said to be gung-ho. JP himself says he has no difficulty with selling off half of air traffic control. The arguments are sound. We need the investment and the project management skills that the private sector will bring in. Plus it will relieve the pressure on the tax payer. He attacks the unions for playing the safety card. Something, he says, they always do when faced with demands for change.

  A meeting of transport ministers in Gus Macdonald’s office. Several people expressed concern about the fuel escalator on which Gordon is said to be very keen. On lorry tax, Larry Whitty said ours was ten times some continental levels ‘and we have no explanation’.

  Gus said we must stop setting targets for everything. As far as cars were concerned, the number was going to increase anyway and so we would only be shooting ourselves in the foot. Most targets were, as he put it, bollocks. He added, ‘I sense a rising derision. We are getting a reputation as a party of busybodies.’

  Keith Hill told me later that there has even been talk of setting targets for the number of people persuaded to walk to work. A later draft of our walking document had substituted ‘benchmarks’ for ‘targets’. Later still, ‘benchmarks’ had given way to ‘reference indicators’. Orwellian.

  Keith and Joe Irvin agree that we are not doing enough for the humble bicycle. Indeed we are doing nothing. I may draft a little paper on the subject in the hope of persuading Gus to take cycling seriously.

  Wednesday, 22 September

  Gus Macdonald confided his surprise at the absence of team working in government. The Scottish Office (where he previously worked) was run by ‘a bunch of affable freelances’. At Environment the problem is worse. ‘We need a chairman at the top, not a charismatic.’ He concedes, however, that JP will never change. We are stuck with a charismatic. Gus says he’s been sent here to take the heat off John. If we can quieten things down for a while, the tabloids will find someone else to take it out on. ‘Being attacked by the tabloids,’ he says, ‘is like being mugged by skinheads.’

  Friday, 24 September

  Sunderland

  To Durham County Cricket Club’s splendid new pavilion at Chester-le-Street to address a housing seminar. The speech that has been drafted for me is so dire that I dare not read it out. It comes accompanied by a thick yellow folder containing briefings covering just about every eventuality except the possibility that I might be talking to intelligent human beings who would prefer not to be addressed by an android. ‘When you become a minister,’ I say, ‘you get given dull, impenetrable, triple-spaced speeches to rea
d out. This is the one I have been given for today …’ Pause to display the fat yellow folder. ‘I propose to ignore it.’ Ostentatiously placing the folder on the table I proceeded to give a more or less on-message account of government strategy, illustrated with reference to my experience in Sunderland. It seemed to go down well. I had thought there were no officials present, but as I was leaving, a man from the Central Office of Information bore down upon me. ‘Minister, I hope you won’t take this the wrong way.’

  I braced myself.

  ‘That was very refreshing.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘By the way, who wrote the speech?’

  ‘Ah, do you see that man over there …?’

  Monday, 27 September

  Labour Party Conference, Bournemouth

  This year’s conference symbol, a rising sun. Increasingly the proceedings come to resemble those that take place in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People. The speeches are for the most part bland, lacking passion or spontaneity. Nothing is left to chance. I even saw an arrow pointing to a room marked ‘delegate training’ – goodness knows what goes on there. And yet, just as one begins to despair that there is any life left in the poor old Labour Party, the comrades rise up and inflict a little pinprick on The Apparatus. This afternoon’s defeat was prompted by the refusal of the chairman to allow a vote on two or three controversial paragraphs in an otherwise unexceptional document. All or nothing, he insisted. Conference took him at his word and voted the whole thing down. It won’t make any difference, of course, but it did cheer everyone up.

  Everyone keeps congratulating me on what they suppose is my good fortune at being made a minister. They then ask, ‘How are you finding it?’ Lacking the ability to lie or bluster, I tell them and end up sounding like an ungrateful old misery. Audrey Wise says I have sold myself too cheap. I am afraid she may be right.