by Chris Mullin
Tuesday, 30 April
Mrs Rogers, a friend of the Savchenkos, rang to say that they were taken away on Sunday. Although we were expecting five days’ notice, police and immigration officers turned up at 8 a.m. and gave them an hour to pack. They were put in a cold, windowless van. No one knew they had gone until next day when a man from Immigration came to return the keys to their flat. Later, Mrs Rogers had a phone call from Mr Savchenko to say that they were being detained near London and would be deported to Spain in ten days. When she went last night with the pastor from the local church to clear up the Savchenkos’ flat they found a note on Sasha’s bed bequeathing his few possessions to the pastor’s children: ‘I leave my Lego to Mary and Samuel … Pokemon to Samuel …’ As though he were about to die. The pastor broke down and wept when he read the note. So did I.
The Savchenkos were/are (I keep thinking of them as though they are dead) such dignified, decent people. They would have made model citizens and the little chap was doing so well at school … I can’t get them out of my mind. If only I could have saved them. I keep going over the arguments I might have made.
I tapped out a note on housing benefit and rogue landlords for The Man and sent it over to Sally Morgan. For good measure, I added a paragraph about air weapons.
Don Touhig, who dined recently with Neil and Glenys Kinnock, says Neil recounted an occasion at a state banquet at Windsor where, after dinner, he and Glenys found themselves sitting either side of the Queen Mother. ‘Mr Kinnock,’ she said, ‘may I say something in absolute confidence?’ And then, sotto voce: ‘Don’t trust the Germans.’
Wednesday, 1 May
Andrew Mackinlay dropped a little bombshell at this afternoon’s meeting of the parliamentary committee. Apparently, under the Freedom of Information Act, by January 2005 MPs’ expenses will be subject to public scrutiny, retrospectively. Goodness knows what mayhem that will cause. ‘We are in a jam,’ said Robin Cook. ‘Few members have yet tumbled to the juggernaut heading their way.’ He said he had been advised that we could probably get away with publishing headline figures and it would be desirable to start publishing a year before the deadline so that any fuss would have died down come the general election. It was agreed not to minute the discussion.
Later, in the division lobby, David Hanson (Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Prime Minister) whispered that The Man was interested in my suggestion for sorting out rogue landlords. ‘I think he’s bitten,’ he said.
Thursday, 2 May
Sunderland
Local elections. I spent a couple of hours with a loudspeaker being driven around Hendon by Lennie Lamb, urging people to vote. A few unpleasant yoblets shouted ‘BNP’ after us, but indifference was the overwhelming sentiment. It is the same all over the country. No serious hostility. Only indifference. I fear we shall be massacred.
Friday, 3 May
The feared massacre never came, although we lost Hull and Norwich to the Liberals and the Tories gained about 300 seats, but it could have been a lot worse. In Hartlepool a monkey was elected as mayor, which is very satisfactory. Another of New Labour’s foolish wheezes – elected mayors – bites the dust.
Saturday, 4 May
Sarah has spent £16 of her own money on a luxurious basket for Bruce in place of the old cardboard box she has been sleeping in, but Bruce will have nothing to do with it, preferring to spend last night outside on the bird table. ‘I am very cross with that cat,’ declared Sarah. ‘She is very ignorant.’
Tuesday, 7 May
A handwritten note from The Man in response to my memorandum on housing benefit and on air weapons. It reads: ‘I agree strongly with what you say and thank you for the sensible and constructive terms in which you say it. I am looking into both issues urgently and will report back.’
Wednesday, 8 May
Mrs Rogers left a message on the office answerphone to say that the Savchenkos had been deported on Monday and that, contrary to what we had been assured, no one in Spain was expecting them. Instead they were simply waved through and spent Monday night camped at Madrid airport. No one knows where they are now. I was livid when I heard this and immediately rang Immigration to demand an explanation. However the official who had insisted both to Jeff Rooker and I that they had to leave immediately on account of the Dublin Convention was away at a conference in Brussels. ‘I am sure he has a mobile,’ I said. ‘Call him.’ But no, he could not be rung. ‘Then call his opposite number in Spain.’ But she was in Brussels, too. ‘Then ring someone else in Spain.’ That wasn’t possible either, ‘because our only Spanish speaker is away, too’. And so it went on. The woman was courteous, but it was hard work generating a sense of urgency. The Savchenkos were just names on a closed file as far as she was concerned, but then of course she has never had to look them in the eye.
Thursday, 9 May
Steve Byers is in trouble again. The Tories are making a huge hullaballoo about the fact that in February he was claiming that Martin Sixsmith had resigned whereas it now turns out that he is still, nominally at least, employed by the Department and that the terms of his departure have only just been agreed. Pretty small beer really. It’s perfectly obvious to anyone of average common sense that Steve’s error was inadvertent and based, although he cannot say so, on misinformation from officials. However, an enormous palaver was organised. Steve was summoned to make another statement. The Tories were shouting and bawling, working themselves up into a huge, entirely synthetic, frenzy. Our side weren’t much better. To be fair, Steve’s statement was a little naff and would have benefited from a note of humility. When my turn came, I just poked fun at the Tories and suddenly the bubble burst. Our side were very chuffed. ‘You changed the mood,’ Mike O’Brien said afterwards. ‘The coup de grâce,’ said Keith Hill. The truth is that Steve is by no means out of the woods yet. Three years ago I considered him a potential leader, but now he’s a busted flush. In politics you never can tell.
Most of the day was spent in the select committee, completing our drugs report. Angela Watkinson had tabled 47 amendments, which took up most of the time. Fortunately, David Cameron has signed up to the reform agenda and so there is no danger of our splitting along party lines, which I had feared. In the end even Humfrey Malins, who was wobbling at one stage, voted with us so all is well. We are on course to make a difference.
The Savchenkos have been located. They are in a Red Cross hostel in Madrid where they are safe for the next two months or so. Goodness knows what will become of them after that.
Friday, 10 May
Sunderland
Customers at the surgery this evening included a young man called Rambo, an asylum seeker from Goma in the eastern Congo. He is half Tutsi, which, he reckons, puts his life at risk were he to be returned to Kinshasa. He made his way to Germany, where his asylum claim was rejected and then to England, where he has been since December 1999. Immigration attempted to bundle him onto a plane back to Germany dressed only in nightclothes and handcuffed, but the pilot refused to carry him after objections from passengers. He then spent four months in detention before being dispersed to Sunderland. The man is terrified and absolutely desperate. He was with me for nearly an hour. ‘Please help me,’ he kept saying, but what can I do? I have run out of ideas. In the end I gave him a tenner and sent him away promising vaguely to make further inquiries, but where and of whom?
These cases haunt me. We’ve grown used to watching horrors on television and then, after a couple of minutes’ ritual sympathy, getting on with our own lives. But now the victims are no longer thousands of miles away. They do not go away when we push the ‘off’ button. They are here, wandering our streets, popping up in our lives. They can talk to us in our own language. They bleed, as we would, were we to change places. One day, who knows, we might.
Saturday, 11 May
There has been another serious train crash, at Potters Bar, only a few miles downline from Hatfield, which was the scene of one of the last big ones. How long, I wonde
r, before the Tories try to pin the blame on Steve Byers?
Tuesday, 21 May
Unless I am very much mistaken, Peter Mandelson isn’t talking to me.
He cuts me dead whenever our paths cross (which is not often). The other day I was sitting with Sue Nye and Sally Dobson in the atrium of Portcullis House when Peter came up and chatted amiably for several minutes without the slightest acknowledgement of my existence. Obviously it is a skill he has perfected over many years. I can guess my offence: that letter I wrote to Sir Anthony Hammond confirming that Mike O’Brien had recounted to me his version of the telephone call that led to Peter’s downfall. There are a lot of people Peter no longer talks to so I am in illustrious company. It must be very wearing having to remember with whom you are on speaking terms and who you are ignoring. I couldn’t keep it up for more than a few days.
Wednesday, 22 May
Our much-leaked, long-awaited drugs report is published this morning and has attracted widespread attention. The BBC and several newspapers are leading with it. I was up bright and early and gave about twenty interviews, starting with Today. The reviews are generally favourable. ‘The MPs … have done the nation a service as the first substantial group of elected politicians to join an adult debate,’ says the Standard. Not everyone was up for an adult debate: ‘Soft MPs want junkies to get safe houses,’ screams the ludicrous Daily Record under a front page headed ‘Smack in the face’. Unfortunately, Blunkett has muddied the waters by issuing a statement refusing to contemplate recategorising Ecstasy and saying there are no plans for safe injecting houses. Silly man, having called for ‘an adult debate on drugs’, he promptly closes it down.
Tony Banks says he is being pressed by Charles Clarke to run against Ken for Mayor. He has set various conditions, one of which is that he be allowed to renegotiate the deal on the London Underground – he is seeing Gordon about that shortly. Also, he doesn’t want to be forgotten if he loses. He plans to stand down at the next election and wants to go to the Lords, which will be a first for a founder member of the Campaign Group. Should he run? How badly does he want the job? Dislike of Ken and his monstrous ego seemed to be Tony’s principal motivation. Not, by itself, a good enough reason. My advice was ‘Don’t’ on the grounds (a) that Tony is likely to lose (although he is undoubtedly a credible candidate) and (b) that I am not convinced he really wants to be mayor.
Tuesday, 28 May
Steve Byers has resigned. The bastards have got him at last. I guess it was inevitable. He wouldn’t have made it past the next reshuffle.
‘Don’t budge,’ I said to The Man at the parliamentary committee two weeks ago, but he didn’t react. He knew we were approaching the point of no return. A new piece of nonsense was appearing every day. To be fair, Steve has made mistakes. None by itself a resigning matter but in the end it was sheer attrition. As he said himself, he was becoming a distraction. We shall all have to grit our teeth while nationwide rejoicing is organised by the junk journalists, egged on by the awful Theresa May. Who will they go for next?
Wednesday, 29 May
Sunderland
To the County Hotel, Durham, to collect Tony Benn, who is performing to packed houses the length and breadth of the country – last night Middlesbrough, tonight South Shields. I gave him a whistlestop tour of Sunderland, highlights and lowlights, from the mansions of Ashbrooke to the boarded, vandalised houses in the darker part of Pennywell. Then home to a delicious vegetarian lunch prepared by Ngoc at which we were joined by Kevin, Pam Wortley and the office staff. There was a brief excitement when, after he failed to extinguish his pipe, it burned a hole in his jacket pocket, filling the house with fumes. He took it out onto the front step and I poured water over it.
Ten minutes later, when we were out, he might have burned the house down.
Saturday, 1 June
Whitsun, St Boswells, Roxburghshire
Our host, Mrs Dale, says that a week ago a monster cat – of the sort occasionally sighted in the West Country – climbed into her walled garden and murdered most of her ducks. One of her guests, who witnessed the slaughter, said it was the size of a labrador and that it played with the ducks as a cat plays with mice before killing them. I found a rotting duck’s head, presumably one of the casualties, in a saucepan. The survivors are now locked up at night.
Monday, 3 June
Awoke to dark skies and torrential rain. By afternoon, however, the weather had miraculously cleared and we spent the afternoon at Sir Walter Scott’s house, Abbotsford, where the little people paddled in
the river for an hour and attempted unsuccessfully to divert the course of the Tweed by building a dam. This evening on television we watched the pop concert in Buckingham Palace gardens, the highlight of which was Barry Humphries introducing the Queen as ‘the Jubilee girl’. Charles made a crass little speech about the wealth of British talent without referring to the foreigners who had flown halfway round the world to take part. The Beach Boys looked very pissed off. I would have been, too.
‘Who’s that man who follows the Queen everywhere?’ asked Emma pointing at Prince Philip.
Tuesday, 4 June
A fascinating little ritual takes place outside our front window at breakfast time each morning. Griselda, a huge, greedy, chestnut mare, waits by the fence for Mrs Dale to appear with her daily ration of oats. Behind, at a respectful distance, the other, smaller horse lingers and behind her a sad old donkey who never really gets a look in. As soon as Mrs Dale appears, Griselda starts pushing and shoving, trying to get her nose in the bucket, watched enviously by the donkey who brays quietly. At this point the goats and Jasper, the big black pig, come running, closely followed by the little pink cluny pig whose round belly almost touches the ground. Meanwhile Mrs Dale has released the turkeys and a bunch of vicious, arrogant geese who come running to join the melee. Finally, when the horses have had their fill and moved off, a flock of crows who have been watching from nearby beech trees, swoop and search out the few undiscovered grains, chased at intervals by the geese. All this takes about 20 minutes and by the time it is over not a single morsel is unaccounted for.
Saturday, 8 June
On the way home we called at Bemersyde, home of the Haigs, where we were the only visitors apart from a couple of fishermen. On the way up from the river we encountered the laird, a pleasant, erect old fellow who told us that the family had been in residence since 1150.
Monday, 10 June
Sunderland
This morning’s post brought a postcard from Lord Haig. ‘If you are coming this way again,’ he writes, ‘please let me know. I would be happy to show you and your family the house – and without the £2!’ He must have gone back to the house, looked me up and got his card in the post even before we were off the premises. I shall certainly take up his offer.
Westminster
Everyone is congratulating or commiserating in the wake of the Byers reshuffle. Mike O’Brien, who has been given a job at the Foreign Office, is looking happier than he has done for ages. Angela Eagle is looking very down. There she was working hard, doing (or so she thought) a reasonable job and with no inkling of what was to come. The Man told her she had had a good run and that was that. At the lower end of the pecking order, reshuffles are an entirely random process. No one had anything against her. Her name just fell off the end of the page because, once the new faces had been accommodated, there was no one to speak up for her. Unlike Michael Wills, whose miraculous resurrection is the subject of much derision in the Tea Room. He obviously has someone very important (no prizes for guessing who) to speak for him. No sooner had he been sacked than he was reinstated, sans salary, in the Home Office. It couldn’t have been more blatant.
Tuesday, 11 June
We are debating another Asylum Bill, the fourth in the last decade.
‘Unless we are worried about the gene pool, what’s the problem?’ asks Brian Sedgemore, in the privacy of the Tea Room. ‘Most asylum seekers are dynamic, hard-working, educate
d people of the sort we badly need to refresh our ageing, lethargic population.’ Not a view that would command widespread support in Sunderland. Neil Gerrard, who I ran into on the way in this morning, is sceptical that Blunkett’s Bill will be any more effective than the previous three. Says Neil, ‘A chap from Nigeria turned up at my surgery the other day. I made representations on his behalf five years ago. He was turned down and yet he’s still here. What’s the point? Why did I bother? I should just have told him to keep his head down.’
Wednesday, 12 June
A quiet talk with The Man’s man, Robert Hill, who wanted my views on the reshuffle (‘because the Prime Minister values your opinion’ -how many times have I heard that?). I said there was some dissatisfaction at Angela Eagle’s treatment and derision at Michael Wills’s reappearance (Robert had the grace to concede that there was embarrassment in Number 10 at this) and that, while there was no problem with the promotion of David Miliband or David Lammy, there should be a limit to the number of clever young men and women on the inside track. ‘There is also merit in hanging on to a few fifty-somethings who can remember what happened last time around.’ I also said I hoped that there might be a way back for Steve Byers. Robert said this was possible, but not until our third term. He added that Steve’s Permanent Secretary, Richard Mottram, was very lucky to survive.
How, I inquired, does The Man assess the performance of ministers? According to Robert, Hilary Armstrong prepares a report, the permanent secretaries feed in via the Cabinet Secretary and David Hanson, Sally Morgan and himself also offer their opinions. Then, seizing the moment, I revealed that I still entertained hopes of returning to government, though not as an under-secretary. I said I wanted a job that required a mixture of competence and idealism such as Environment or International Development. I was careful to emphasise that this was without prejudice to the present incumbents, both of whom were doing excellent work. Robert said they had considered moving one – he didn’t say which (Michael, I suspect) – this time round, but decided to leave it another year. He added, ‘I need to get you together with Tony.’ We shall see. I am not holding my breath.
