A View From The Foothills

by Chris Mullin

  On and on he raved. What he really suffered from was Chronic Whinger Syndrome, a disease all too common in these parts. ‘I blame the councillors,’ he raved. ‘And I blame you MPs. And I blame’ – by now I’d had enough of him – ‘Everybody but yourself,’ I said.

  ‘Goodbye.’ And with that I walked away leaving him fuming. I felt much better afterwards. I’m going to do it more often.

  Sunday, 30 April

  The Vietnam War ended 25 years ago today. Ngoc and her family were crouched on the ground floor of their little house in Le Van Si while, outside, chaos reigned. Ngoc says she knew when the war was over because, by lying flat, she could see under the shutters that the boots of the southern army had been replaced by northern feet in sandals.

  Tuesday, 2 May

  There was a riot by anarchists last night. They defaced Churchill’s statue and the Cenotaph, dug up Parliament Square and looted the McDonald’s restaurant at the end of Whitehall. Nicholas Soames told me that his mother was in tears over the graffiti on her father’s statue. I agreed that it was all very upsetting, but unwisely added, ‘I think we can afford the loss of the odd McDonald’s.’ He smiled wickedly and said, ‘Lucky I’m your friend.’

  The Countryside Bill committee went on until 10 p.m. I gave a little tug at my strings today. David Heath, a Lib Dem, moved that the Ministry of Defence be required to report regularly to Parliament about what it’s doing with the vast amount of land under its control. The advice was to resist, but I consulted Michael and he agreed that this was a perfectly reasonable suggestion so we agreed to consider. Officials warned afterwards that the Ministry of Defence would be upset. Sod them, I say. They can’t always have everything their own way.

  Wednesday, 3 May

  On the way in this morning, I saw two homeless Sikhs sleeping rough on the seats on the traffic island opposite Kennington Park. I’ve never seen a homeless Sikh before. Where have they come from? Presumably off the back of a lorry.

  At the meeting of the parliamentary party JP mounted a robust defence of our plans for air traffic control. Gus and I shared the platform with him. JP was on good form. He had prepared carefully. Notes written out in black felt tip, underlined at intervals in red. He began slowly and calmly. His language uncharacteristically moderate (expressing only ‘disappointment’ with the select committee report). The troops were attentive (scarcely anyone left during the entire hour and a half), but unenthusiastic. There was little laughter. Applause was lukewarm. Gwyneth Dunwoody sat at the back, a brooding, ominous presence who haunts all our deliberations.

  Nick Raynsford tells me that he has received an inquiry from the Home Office as to whether we could see our way to granting accelerated planning permission for six detention camps for asylum seekers. He has said no. Nothing has been said publicly about this so far. I hope they are all located deep in the meanest part of middle England.

  Thursday, 4 May

  Sunderland

  Local government election day. An hour with Stuart Porthouse (the Thornholme candidate) driving around deserted streets, urging people to come out and vote. The two polling stations we called on had attracted 32 and 42 voters respectively in their first four hours. I passed a woman emerging from the new housing in the east end of Hendon. ‘Have you voted?’ called Stuart. ‘Nah,’ she sneered, ‘you’ve done nothing for us.’ My blood boiled. Her little estate has been transformed in the last three years. It used to consist of prefabricated double maisonettes, vandalised and crime-ridden. Public money has been poured in. Now it’s all neat houses with gardens. There’s even a little police station in the base of one of the refurbished tower blocks. Yet most people see no connection between their transformed lives and politics.

  In the afternoon I spent three hours with Gill Galbraith knocking on doors in the Hendon long streets. The first was opened by a man of about 65 who claimed he was Labour through and through, but he would not be voting by way of protest against the measly 75 pence pension increase. In vain I drew his attention to the £150 heating allowance and the changes in the tax threshold, but he wasn’t having any of it. He was polite but firm. The 75 pence, he said, was an insult. It’s hard not to disagree. For all our talk of helping the poorest, we just aren’t getting through. There is real anger. There were the usual complaints about anti-social neighbours. The long streets used to consist of owner-occupied cottages, full of dignified working people with a good sense of community, but gradually the landlords are getting a grip, bringing with them a plague of criminal youths – every one of them on benefit. People complained of stolen cars being raced around the streets. Sooner or later someone, probably a child, will be killed. And in the midst of all this mayhem, decent people are trapped. Their homes unsaleable. And yet we seem powerless to help. It’s no good chanting ‘things can only get better’. These people’s lives are getting worse.

  Friday, 5 May

  As predicted, we have taken a hammering in the local elections, losing about 600 seats. The People’s Ken has been swept to power in London with Steve Norris the runner-up. It is almost exactly a year since I told The Man to his face that Ken would be elected under all circumstances. Still, I don’t suppose he would thank me for reminding him.

  Monday, 8 May

  To London on the 09.00, stopping off at York for an hour and a half to open a new state-of-the-art (Lottery-funded) environmental community centre. I was conveyed the three miles from the city centre in a yellow cyclo (a most civilised form of transport) of which there are eight operating in York and several photographers turned out to bear witness. The return journey had to be made by car because, as luck would have it, JP was also in town. His minders (recalling previous disasters) had sent word that they did not want me upstaging my master by arriving at the station in a cyclo just as he tumbled out of his official Jag. In the event I missed him by about ten minutes and there were no embarrassments.

  The whips are rushing hither and thither trying to contain tomorrow’s rebellion on air traffic control. I have been given the names of Members thought to be persuadable and spent an hour or two bending ears. People keep nudging me and saying quietly, ‘I bet you’d be in the other lobby if you were still on the backbenches.’ I reply truthfully that I would vote with the government. My guess is that the rebellion will be large, but not disastrous.

  Tuesday, 9 May

  The air traffic control debate. JP (who never runs away from a fight) led for our side and Nick Raynsford brought up the rear so all that was required of me was to spend a couple of hours on the front bench, nodding in the right places. Our side were all grim-faced, but there was much merriment on the Tory side. One of the officials said to me afterwards that JP – who was not at his best – had been unnerved by an earlier point of order about the flat in Clapham which he rents on favourable terms from a trade union. Our majority was down to about 65 – 45 of our side voted against and goodness knows how many abstained. It could have been worse. The whips seemed remarkably cheerful. Several (Ann Taylor included) thanked me for my little effort, which they seemed to think had carried some weight with waverers. JP seemed massively relieved. This has been a big test for him. He told me Gwyneth had sent a message saying that Blair and Brown were ditching him. ‘I’m not doing it for Blair and Brown. I’m doing it because it’s right. Mind you,’ he added, ‘I wouldn’t have started down this road … I’ve used up enough credit. I’m not going to use up any more.’

  Wednesday, 10 May

  Came across JP, alone in the corridor behind the Speaker’s chair. He had just fled the meeting of the parliamentary party, where some of the more strident sisters were demanding better facilities and more consideration from their male brethren. JP was in reflective mode. ‘Is it just me who finds it hard being lectured by middle-class women about being too aggressive? I find some of them very aggressive.’ He wasn’t ranting or angry, just puzzled. ‘It’s not so much aggression, it’s just that I feel passionately about things. And what would they know about how working-cla
ss women feel?’ Someone had given him the book The Women’s Room in an attempt to educate him. ‘I was appalled to read how barren and empty they thought their lives were. Pauline says that the years when she was looking after the children were the happiest of her life.’ This was not the usual angry, ranting JP. This was JP the Bemused. A side not often on display. Gradually, I warm to him.

  Friday, 12 May

  The two homeless Sikhs are still camped on the island opposite Kennington Park.

  Monday, 15 May

  To Admiralty House for an aviation ‘summit’. The main issue is whether or not to break up the British Airports Authority on the grounds that it is a monopoly. We are due to hear presentations from the Civil Aviation Authority (in favour) and BAA (against, naturally).

  First, however, Gus Macdonald, the officials and I are ushered up to JP’s comfortable pad on the top floor. JP is in informal mode. Carpet slippers, an open-necked short-sleeved shirt, a mug of coffee in hand. We assemble around the table in the dining room. Behind, on a smaller table, three magnificent displays of lilies (white, yellow and orange) which, upon inspection, turn out to be artificial. One or two photographs – Pauline and son, Pauline at the races. Through a half-open door, I glimpse an exercise bike. JP exercising? The mind boggles. From the moment JP speaks it is clear that we are just going through the motions. The suggestion came from the Treasury, not us. There are mocking references to Sir Stephen Robson, a Treasury mandarin, who will be present and who is apparently the Privatiser in Chief. ‘The Devil himself,’ says JP. ‘The man who privatised the railways,’ says one of the officials. ‘And the rest,’ adds another. Sir Stephen, allegedly, is on record as saying that his only hero is Keith Richards.

  ‘Who is Keith Richards?’ asks JP – to general incredulity.

  We troop downstairs and arrange ourselves in a circle of armchairs and sofas in the grand drawing room. The decor is gold. The pictures of wild empty landscapes. JP, still in shirtsleeves, has a sofa to himself in the centre of the room. Mike Hodgkinson and the BAA team sit opposite, to his right. Sir Malcolm Field of the CAA and his guru, a bald Australian, are at the other end of the room. Everyone except me has removed their jackets. Sir Stephen, languid, urbane, thick black braces, has arranged himself on a sofa, well within JP’s line of fire. He has a severe, pinched, long face – not unlike that of his only hero (except that he has weathered rather better). First question: is BAA a monopoly? Undoubtedly, says Sir Stephen. ‘IN CAPITAL LETTERS.’ It has 90 per cent of the UK market. Ah yes, say the men from BAA, but our real competitors are not other British airports. They are the airports at Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam. Our charges are already very competitive. If you broke us up nothing would change. Sir Stephen says wearily, ‘We heard all these arguments endlessly in relation to British Gas et al, only to be proved wrong by events.’ JP piles in, peppering everyone with questions. He is supposed to be in the chair, but his views are appended to every question. His grasp of detail is impressive. JP really is very bright. It’s just that his mind works faster than his mouth, which sometimes makes it difficult for those with slower brains to follow his train of thought. It must be obvious to everyone that we are just going through the motions. Sir Stephen, who has a mirthless smile, makes no great effort to press his case. The killer fact is supplied by an official. If we even so much as refer BAA to the Competition Commission, the chances are that the objectors will want to reopen the terminal five inquiry. And no one, but no one, wants to go through all that again. After two hours (at least half of which is occupied by JP) the parties are dismissed. I suspect we won’t be hearing any more about breaking up BAA.

  Over lunch a more general discussion. The official in charge of aviation talked with, I thought, a little too much enthusiasm about the likely growth of passenger movements from 160 million a year at present to 400 million in 20 years’ time. At one point he used the word ‘inevitable’. ‘Not if we have the political will to slow it down,’ I said (just about my only intervention in the entire proceedings). ‘It means jobs,’ said Gus (who firmly believes that Big is Beautiful). ‘If it’s sustainable, it’s great,’ said the official. The truth is, of course, it’s not sustainable. It’s madness and we ought to pluck up the courage to draw a line. It could be done by auctioning landing slots at the most congested airports (big money for the government there), which everyone agrees are seriously underpriced. JP complained that the airlines seem to think that they own the slots, but they don’t.

  One of the sad Sikhs is still camped at the junction of Brixton and Clapham Roads. This morning he was sitting apart from a derelict man and woman (who, unlike him, lack any sense of dignity), with his back to the fountain. Leaning forward, arms resting on his knees, contemplating his situation. One has the sense that his plight is only temporary. That he is waiting for something. What?

  Wednesday, 17 May

  To the Queen Elizabeth Centre for a ‘Listening to Old People’ event.

  A classic New Labour wheeze designed to create the illusion of consultation. A truly dire occasion. Thank goodness I was not participating (Keith Hill drew the short straw from our Department). I sat quietly at the back, praying no one would spot me (no one did). It should have been called ‘Listening to Ministers’. The platform consisted of a long line of ministerial talking heads, each armed with long, leaden texts, full of talk of working parties and action plans, which they were expected to read out to an audience of sullen, whingey over-50s (yes, the lower age limit was 50). Most of whom looked as though they led prosperous, stress-free lives. John Hutton (who does a passable imitation of Tony Blair) had the good sense to junk his text and speak off the cuff. When the sleek harridan compèring the proceedings announced that, regrettably, most of the ministers would have to flee before there was a chance to ask questions, rebellion broke out. At this point I slunk deeper into my chair, praying that I would not be called upon to plug the gap. No need to worry, however. The uprising was swiftly suppressed. The harridan conceded nothing. Ministers were busy people. We should all be grateful that they had found time to grace us with their presence. But the punters were not grateful. Not a bit. They felt they had been short-changed. And so they had. No doubt they all went home, saying what a waste of time it was. We probably even lost a few votes. Goodness knows what the cost was. I await the official note saying how useful and informative it was.

  Monday, 22 May

  To London on the 09.00. Whitehall was blocked by demonstrating Eritreans. The police had sealed it off completely and were herding the demonstrators into Richmond Terrace. Another crowd as being held at bay near the Treasury. Waiting at the pedestrian crossing on the corner of Parliament Square I encountered Madam Speaker, unaccompanied. ‘Hello, Betty. Not often you’re allowed out on your own.’

  ‘I’ve come to see what’s happening.’

  It is the Speaker’s job to make sure that Members have unimpeded access to the Palace of Westminster. The Home Secretary had telephoned to assure her that Whitehall was clear, but Betty had decided to see for herself. Suddenly I found myself co-opted as an unofficial escort. As it happened Whitehall was still blocked. We marched smartly across the road, Betty instantly recognisable in her smart black two-piece and luminous, grey-blue hair. Without glancing down, she stepped off the kerb, a gleaming shoe avoiding by millimetres two large deposits of police horse manure. Raising the ribbon in the manner of one born to command (although, it has to be said, Betty is utterly without airs), she marched up to the nearest policeman and gently interrogated him on the prospects for an early reopening. He was not well-informed.

  ‘I’m just a small cog,’ he pleaded.

  ‘I know the feeling,’ I whispered. With that, about turn and back to the pedestrian crossing, where we parted, still a few hundred yards outside her domain.

  To Admiralty House to hear Hilary Armstrong discourse on the relationship between central and local government. Despite her background (north-east machine politics) Hilary is a moderniser. ‘Best Valu
e’, ‘Beacon Councils’ – the New Labour watchwords trip effortlessly off her tongue. We are in danger, she said, of becoming hung up on structures rather than delivery. The discussion afterwards produced no great insights. The next Admiralty House seminar is on risk management. I will give it a miss. What do I need to know about the management of risk when even my lunch invitations are the subject of clearance by the Deputy Prime Minister?

  To Trinity Hospice in Clapham to see Una Cooze, who is dying of cancer. I was feeling down when I set out, but Una (who has only weeks to live) was so infectiously cheerful that I felt ashamed. A wonderful woman. Not a trace of self-pity. We laughed and joked for an hour and even went for a little stroll around the garden. The eerie thing is that Una looks so well, apart from a huge inoperable swelling

  in her tummy. Dear, silly old Michael Foot, for whom she worked for years, has sent her a Get Well Soon card. She thought that was hilarious, too.

  Una’s husband John was there. His father was the coachman who drove the Queen to her coronation. John was brought up at Windsor and at Buckingham Palace. As a child he was even taken to pantomimes and picnics with the princesses. The experience turned him into a staunch republican. Sheila Williams recalled, during the 1959 election, driving into the Royal Mews to pick up John in a Rolls-Royce owned by the publisher Anthony Blond which was plastered with stickers saying ‘Vote Labour for a fairer Britain’.

  Wednesday, 24 May

  Dinner with Elinor Goodman at the Atrium. One of the few political journalists I take seriously. She says that we’re doing most of the right things on the issues that matter – literacy, youth unemployment, eroding the benefit culture, helping the deserving poor – but that it just isn’t coming across because of New Labour’s obsession with spin and control freakery. Even so, she thinks we’ll win the election by 60 or 70 seats. She agrees about the lamentable state of political journalism. Even Channel Four News, she says, is no longer content to allow viewers to make up their own minds, but instead has appended its own spin.