A View From The Foothills

by Chris Mullin

  To the Chelsea Arts Club for lunch with my old friends Brian Eads and Claes Bratt. Claes says that for the first time the Swedes are beginning to discuss the great unmentionable: immigration.

  Gothenburg, his home town, was now 25 per cent recent migrants and some, especially the Muslims, were starting to demand that the Swedes adapt to their culture rather than the other way round. The Swedes had already conceded that immigrant children had a right to be taught in their own language. Now there were demands for Muslim public holidays to be observed, there had been an outbreak of so-called honour killings and an increase in crime, attributed to an influx of Kosovar Albanians. According to Claes, Sweden’s liberal ethos was being stretched to the limit.

  Thursday, 13 June

  To Torquay to appear on Question Time, in the company of Menzies Campbell, Teresa Gorman, John Maples and a pleasant but vacuous young woman called Emma Jones, who has a column in the Sun. A long way to go to be murdered in front of several million people. The audience was almost wholly hostile. I was isolated, inept and failed to land a single punch. Nothing I said attracted more than the merest ripple of applause.

  Tuesday, 18 June

  The Harmsworth Lie Machine has gone into overdrive. ‘And now: the great hospital blunders cover up,’ screeches this morning’s Mail. ‘Even more NHS blunders,’ rages the early edition of the Standard (which has reverted to type since Max Hastings departed). By mid-afternoon, however, the Standard had found another outlet for its boundless indignation: an unexceptional remark by Cherie Blair at a Medical Aid for Palestine event which unfortunately coincided with a horrendous new suicide bomb in Israel. However, the nonsense over the Queen Mother’s funeral, which raged all weekend, has all but disappeared.* Yesterday the Tories were calling for Alastair’s head and demanding a statement. Today they’ve dropped the subject. So have their friends in the media. Almost as if someone has flicked a switch. Which may be exactly what has happened. My guess is that the Palace has sent word, probably via Nicholas Soames, that Her Majesty is none too pleased to see the memory of her mother’s funeral dragged through the mud. Soames told me that he had been on to the Tory Chief Whip demanding that the dogs be called off.

  Robert Harris has a piece in today’s Telegraph suggesting that Gordon will be leader by this time next year. The boldest prediction I have yet seen.

  Monday, 24 June

  To Number 10, with the parliamentary committee, to see The Man. Security has been stepped up since our last visit. All visitors now have to pass through a metal detector after which there is a policeman cradling a sub-machine gun. According to Hilary Armstrong, the security services recently picked up word of a threat to his life – from a Chechen – which they are taking seriously. He now has a motor cycle escort everywhere he goes and the children are driven to school by armed detectives.

  The Man was looking tired, yawning and rubbing his eyes. As we were leaving he said, ‘You made a big impression on Euan on Question Time the other night.’ Amazing. I thought I’d made a hash of it. Good old Euan. What a perceptive fellow he must be. The Man added, ‘I didn’t think Euan was interested in politics, but he’s even talking about canvassing.’

  A chat with Treasury Minister Dawn Primarolo in the Tea Room. She says that Gordon has changed since the death of baby Jennifer. ‘He recognises there are other things in life.’ Does he, indeed?

  Wednesday, 26 June

  George Foulkes, who has just been made a privy counsellor, tells the following tale. Some time ago Clare Short and Mo Mowlam were attending upon the Queen when Clare’s pager started vibrating. Clare surreptitiously checked the message. Whereupon Her Majesty looked up and inquired, ‘Someone important?’

  Monday, 1 July

  The Americans have bombed a wedding party in Afghanistan, killing goodness knows how many people. Entire families have been wiped out. They have reacted with the usual arrogance. First, they said they came under anti-aircraft fire, which is obviously nonsense. Even now they are refusing to apologise, implying that it was somehow the fault of the victims. We’ve seen it all before. In Cambodia, Iraq, Kosovo and they always behave in the same way. As if the only lives that matter are American. No wonder they are hated.

  Tuesday, 2 July

  Ngoc recounts the following exchange with Emma last night:

  ‘Is Daddy here?’

  ‘Daddy’s in London. You know he goes to London every Monday.’

  ‘Oh yes, I forgot.’

  ‘Would you like Dad to work in Sunderland so he comes home every night?’

  ‘No. I like to tell people that my Dad’s in Parliament.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Daddy is famous.’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘A bit.’

  Wednesday, 3 July

  At the parliamentary committee, the main topic was the growing list of disagreements with the Americans. The latest is that they are threatening to collapse various peacekeeping operations, starting in Bosnia, if they are not granted immunity from the proposed international criminal court. As regards the tariffs on steel and textiles, The Man said it was straightforward protectionism, pork barrel politics. ‘The Democrats are as bad as the Republicans – I lost count of the number of weird conversations I had with Bill Clinton about cashmere sweaters and bananas.’ However, he warned, we should beware of the Tory agenda which was to suggest that we had to make a choice between Europe and America and that a Labour government couldn’t do business with a Republican President. It wasn’t true. In Canada recently, at the G8 summit, relations between himself and George Bush had been as warm as ever. He added that, on the Middle East, he had made clear to Bush that we would only make progress if everyone was genuine about a Palestinian state and that we would work with whoever the Palestinians elected.

  I raised the latest atrocity in Afghanistan. Couldn’t we at least persuade the Americans to compensate the victims? ‘There’s a long history of these accidents,’ I said. ‘The Americans are becoming increasingly gung-ho and their lack of contrition only makes matters worse.’

  The Man said quietly, ‘I don’t disagree with that.’

  Monday, 8 July

  To Brussels in the company of half a dozen members of the select committee. Our purpose, to unravel the mysteries of the European Union’s Justice and Home Affairs ‘pillar’ in which we are supposed to take an interest. The clerks have supplied us with a blue file containing everything we need to know, but my eyes glaze over at the very mention of the Article 36 committee and words like ‘communitarisation’. Until now I have managed to avoid Brussels. I last passed this way in the summer of 1969 when Sue H and I set off on our ill-fated trip to Greece in my old Ford van. All I can recall is a series of underpasses. Dinner with Nigel Sheinwald (Harrow Grammar School, Balliol; three sons at Eton) at the residence on the Rue Ducale. A rising star. Charming, confident, brilliant – reminded me of Portillo. He gave every appearance of taking us seriously even though we must have seemed an unimpressive bunch, given our hazy grasp of matters European.

  Tuesday, 9 July

  Brussels

  Wall-to-wall meetings – with the head of the Justice and Home Affairs secretariat for the Council of Ministers, a sleek Belgian whose name apparently translates as ‘grave-digger’; the Danish permanent representative, who amused us with mimicry of his Italian colleagues; the president of Euro-Just, once a public prosecutor in Sussex; and finally with Commissioner Vitorino, a balding, diminutive, rotund bundle of energy from Portugal who cheered us all up. ‘A sense of humour,’ he says, ‘is essential for survival in this place.’ I bet it is.

  In between we were entertained to lunch at the European Parliament by a couple of our Euro colleagues. The Parliament building is a gargantuan, soulless, monument to powerlessness. Gaining admission involved lengthy rigmarole (passports confiscated and returned on departure). ‘How,’ I asked one of our hosts, ‘does a citizen who wishes to see European democracy at work gain entry?’ He scratched his head. In h
is eight years as a Euro MP no constituent has ever contacted him with such a request. And as for turning up unannounced, that is out of the question.

  Nothing unpremeditated takes place in this building. In the chamber every speech is strictly timed, typed out triple-spaced, read into the record and simultaneously translated into goodness knows how many languages before being lost in the ether. Has a single memorable speech ever been made in this building?

  The Justice and Home Affairs committee consists of 40 members with another 40 in reserve. How does the chair cope. ‘Don’t worry,’ I am assured, ‘rarely more than half turn up at any one time.’ And every few weeks the entire circus decamps from Brussels to another gargantuan, soulless, powerless monstrosity in Strasbourg. This is William Cobbett’s ‘tax-eating’ on an awesome scale. And to what end?

  Nothing, nothing, nothing would tempt me to be a Euro MP.

  Wednesday, 10 July

  To Queen Anne’s Gate to see the Home Secretary about this afternoon’s statement in response to our drugs report. He is proposing to reclassify cannabis, thereby reducing the penalties for use, but to double those for dealing. He is willing to look at managed prescribing though not – ‘for the moment’ – safe injecting houses. Unfortunately the waters have been muddied by the so-called ‘Drugs Tsar’, Keith Hellawell, announcing, on the Today programme, his resignation in protest against the cannabis decision. In fact he was on his way out anyway – his two-day-a-week contract was due to expire in three weeks. The statement itself was not well received. People fired off in all directions. Some wanted more. Some less. Letwin, unusually, was hopeless. He made no mention of heroin or crack, which are the real problem, and concentrated instead on playing to the tabloids over cannabis – contrary, I suspect, to his instincts, which are usually sound. To listen to the nonsense one would have thought Blunkett was proposing to make cannabis a sacrament. Kate Hoey kept on about ‘sending out the wrong message to our young’. If people like her would stop peddling the wrong message, there wouldn’t be any confusion. Peter Lilley scored a bull’s-eye: what we are doing, he said, is leaving cannabis in the hands of the same people who deal in heroin and crack. He’s surely right. The more I think about it, we should legalise and regulate. Though goodness knows what hysteria that would trigger.

  At the parliamentary committee this afternoon I pushed again on compensation for the survivors of the bombings in Afghanistan.

  Couldn’t he at least raise the matter privately with George W.? Apparently not. ‘We must wait for a report’ was all The Man said. For all this talk of a special relationship, The Man comes over all coy at any suggestion of tackling our bosom buddies on difficult issues. Not because he’s cowardly, but because he knows it’s hopeless, but daren’t say so.

  In an attempt to engage his attention I said, ‘All these mistakes are undermining support for Karzai.’ He looked pained, but said nothing.

  The truth is, as he knows all too well, that when the chips are down we have little or no influence with the psychopaths now in charge in Washington.

  Thursday, 11 July

  ‘BLUNKETT GAMBLES WITH OUR CHILDREN,’ screams the front page of this morning’s Sun on the decision to downgrade cannabis and there is more of the same in several other papers. So much for the mature debate that he was hoping for. Is it possible to have a mature discussion about any difficult issue in this country? Instead of wobbling around in the middle of the road, attracting flak from all sides, wouldn’t it be nice just to do the right thing for once and tell Rupert Murdoch, Paul Dacre, Conrad Black et al to fuck off?

  Our committee clerk Andrew Kennon is upbeat. He says, ‘I’ve seen some mealy-mouthed, weasel-worded responses to select committees in my time, but my impression is that the government really have made an effort to engage with us this time.’

  Saturday, 13 July

  Sunderland

  To the Durham miners’ gala. Tony Benn and Jeremy Corbyn were on the balcony of the County Hotel along with dear old Michael Foot, who looks more than ever like a will’-o’-the-wisp, swaying uncertainly in the sunshine. I feared the effort would kill him, but he seems to have survived. We marched down Old Elvet, behind the Wearmouth Banner, in glorious sunshine, past the prison. Somewhere up there behind the bars is Rose West, who will never be released. It must be an eerie feeling to hear the sounds of people enjoying themselves a few yards away and know that you can never take part. I once asked Judith Ward, who spent 14 years in Durham jail, if she knew she was in the most beautiful city in England. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘my mother gave me some tourist leaflets.’

  Sunday, 14 July

  Three derelict cars have been abandoned in our back lane. One by our back gate, which makes it difficult to get our car in and out.

  Wednesday, 17 July

  To a well-attended meeting of the parliamentary party for a debate on the Euro. Gordon was not best pleased. He wanted to discuss his spending review, but Jean insisted in sticking with the advertised programme. He gave an impressive performance. Gordon is master of all he surveys. In total command of his brief. If anyone can lead us to the promised land, it is he. Our future – even The Man’s – is in his hands (and which of us is better equipped than Gordon, armed with his five tests?) but Make-Your-Mind-Up-Time is drawing nigh. He promised a conclusion by June. If he gets it right, his rise will be unstoppable. If he screws up, he is doomed – as are we all.

  ‘Isn’t Gordon a commanding figure?’ remarked the Leader of the Lords, Gareth Williams, as we walked out together. ‘One has an impression of strength and confidence.’

  I replied that, as regards the Euro, I wasn’t clear which side he was on, but Gareth was. ‘He’ll come down in favour.’

  Dmitri Kozak, the Russian deputy head of the Administration of the President, came to see me. He has been given the onerous task of reforming his country’s system of criminal justice. Ostensibly he was here to learn about ours, but he didn’t ask a single question. The main problem with ours, I remarked, was that too many criminals were getting off. ‘We have the opposite problem,’ he replied. ‘In Russia the acquittal rate is 0.4 of 1 per cent.’

  To Number 10 for the annual photograph of the parliamentary committee, which, this year, was in the garden. What greater privilege than a walled garden in the centre of London? Evidence of the children is everywhere. A trampoline, a climbing frame, a football in the pond and a miniature goal for little Leo. Later, while we were having our meeting in the Cabinet Room, came the sound of girlish laughter. It was so loud that eventually the doors to the garden had to be closed. ‘I am afraid that’s my daughter,’ said The Man.

  We discussed Iraq. Ann Clwyd quoted Scott Ritter: ‘Bush needs a war and he’ll drag everyone else in.’

  The Man said that the Republican right were not necessarily in favour of intervention and neither were we. It depended on the

  context. There was no doubt that Saddam will, over time, build weapons of mass destruction. ‘The question is, will he let the inspectors back in?’

  ‘What’s your opinion?’ asked Doug Hoyle.

  ‘He might, if the heat’s turned up enough.’

  ‘There are a number of questions we should be thinking about,’ I said. ‘What would Saddam do if cornered? How much collateral damage – the last time we encouraged the Kurds and the Shia to rise up the result was not merely disastrous, but catastrophic. And how much help would we get from the Americans when it came to clearing up afterwards?’

  ‘Those questions have to be answered,’ said The Man, ‘and, if we can’t answer them, we won’t do it.’ He added that, contrary to what most people seemed to believe, the Americans had stayed engaged both in Kosovo and in Afghanistan. After the Taliban, Iraq was the world’s most repressive regime. There was torture and murder on an unbelievable scale. If we had an opportunity to get rid of it, we should.

  ‘That argument could have been made any time since the 1980s,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve had two wars – Kosovo and Afghanist
an – and I think I can claim that we got it right.’

  ‘The jury is still out on Afghanistan,’ I said. ‘The situation is still very bad in some parts.’

  The Man looked hurt. ‘We had a report from our ambassador the other day. Kandahar is thriving. If you took a poll …’ ‘What’s your alternative, Chris?’ sneered Prescott.

  ‘I think I can say we haven’t done anything rash so far.’ The Man grinned sheepishly.

  ‘Is that the best you can offer?’ I said.

  ‘We can indict the Iraqis now,’ said Ann. This seemed to come as news to The Man, although Ann has been pressing the point for ages.

  ‘Why don’t I look into it and come back to you?’

  Thursday, 18 July

  I asked George Young whether everyone in the Tory Party was signed up to a war with Iraq. He replied that he had a lot of military people in his constituency and they were all opposed: ‘I imagine the American military are offering the same advice to George Bush.’ He added, ‘We are trying to disengage Iain Duncan Smith from the Americans.’

  To the Banqueting House to hear the parliamentary choir sing Mozart’s Coronation Mass which they did brilliantly. As we were going downstairs, someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to find Cherie Blair. ‘You weren’t too unkind to my husband on Tuesday,’ she said referring to his appearance before the Liaison Committee.

  ‘He and I have an understanding,’ I replied.

  ‘I think you do.’

  Monday, 22 July

  Several angry letters from NHS consultants upset at my description in the Echo of them as ‘a profession notorious for their self-importance and their pursuit of self-interest’. I’ve been feeling guilty ever since, thinking of the dedicated consultants of my acquaintance – Mr Mellon who removed my kidney stone and Mike Laurence who is among the most generous and least self-important men I know. I must try to avoid gratuitously offending entire professions.