by Chris Mullin
Jack emerged looking sombre. I remarked, unwisely perhaps, that although Clare was difficult to work with, the Department for International Development had been a success. He replied ominously, ‘We could have achieved all the good we have done without setting up a separate department.’
I said that, given that Valerie was in the Lords, there was an urgent need for a credible figure at this end of the building and I was available, if called. Jack, who is off to South Africa this evening, said, ‘I’ll pass that on tout de suite’ and off he went.
Later, at about eight o’clock, I was sitting with Gil Loescher (an American academic with whom I travelled in China in 1971) in the atrium at Portcullis House when Jean Corston appeared and said the Prime Minister was looking for me. She had come straight from an audience with The Man at Number 10. He had apologised for not discussing in advance his plan to replace Clare with Valerie and asked what she would do about the job in the Commons. Jean had seized the moment. ‘I’d give it to Chris Mullin,’ she said. ‘Right,’ he replied, ‘I will.’ I kissed her and went straight to the telephone. Sure enough, there were two pink slips on the message board: the first, timed 19.23,
said ring the Prime Minister’s office; the second, timed 20.00, was from the whips and said the same. They had ‘Urgent’ stamped all over them. For the first time in my life I could have done with a pager.
I rang Number 10. The woman on the switchboard said my call was expected and asked me to hang on. Several clicks and then silence. She came back to say that The Man was tied up. Would I call back in ten minutes? I rang again. More clicks, more silence. While I was holding on, Hilary Armstrong and John Reid came by, beaming all over their faces and giving me the thumbs up, confirmation, if any were needed, that the job was mine. More clicks, more silence and then, ‘The Prime Minister isn’t available this evening. He will call you tomorrow morning.’
There was no reason at this stage to suppose anything was wrong. After all, the Chief Whip herself had indicated to me that my hour had come. Or had she?
At about nine o’clock, a message from the Evening Standard. Would I write an overnight op-ed piece denouncing today’s demand by the British Airports Authority for lots more runways? The devil had offered me a chance to self-destruct in exchange for £600. Needless to say, I resisted temptation and began to make plans for tomorrow. I was due to chair the Home Affairs Committee at 09.30 and, in my absence, the task would fall to the senior opposition member, Ann Widdecombe. Given that asylum was the subject of our inquiry, this did not seem a good idea. I decided to seek advice from Hilary. It was then that it became clear that all was not as it seemed.
‘The Prime Minister hadn’t realised that you voted the wrong way on Iraq,’ she said slyly.
‘Nonsense,’ I replied. ‘He and I had a 15-minute conversation on the subject, on the day.’
‘Well, he had forgotten.’ It soon became clear that, as soon as word reached her of my impending appointment, Hilary had rushed over to Number 10 to put the boot in and that this was the reason why he had suddenly become unavailable. She must have been with him at the very moment of my first call. No doubt she was saying that rewarding a dissident would send the wrong message to the boys and girls. I can’t really blame her for that. It is the job of the Chief Whip to draw The Main Person’s attention to any downside, but why the smile and the thumbs-up when she passed me in Portcullis House? (I realise now that she must have been on the way back from the very conversation.) That, surely, is over and above the call of duty, even for a Chief Whip.
There was, she indicated, a sliver of hope, but I should not get too excited. The Man had decided to sleep on it. ‘Your name is still in the frame, but there are one or two others, too.’ In the meantime, she added, I should take nothing for granted.
I could kick myself. Had I returned The Man’s call immediately, I’d have been anointed before Hilary could have got to him.
Tuesday, 13 May
I slept well, all things considered. By eight I was back in my office on Upper Corridor South. At 8.30 I placed a call, via the Number 10 switchboard, to Sally Morgan and received a message that she was just going into a meeting and would ring back in half an hour, but she never did. Then I rang Jean at her flat, who said she would get on to Pat McFadden immediately. She rang back a few minutes later to report that the omens were not auspicious. Pat had confirmed that The Man hadn’t realised I voted ‘the wrong way’ on Iraq. To Jean’s argument that appointing me would send a good signal, building bridges and all that, Pat had responded (‘in that Scottish way of his’) ‘Ah no, Jean, this is Iraq.’ He went on to explain that a great deal of the international development work concerned Iraq and the Tories were bound to make trouble if a dissident were appointed, especially as Clare, in her resignation speech, had made such a big deal about what was going on at the UN. I don’t agree, but I can see his point. That’s half my trouble, I can usually see the other side’s point.
My fate sealed, I settled down miserably to read the papers for the select committee. The Call came at 09.17. It went as follows:
CM: ‘Tony.’
The Man: ‘Chris, I am sorry not to have come back to you earlier.
As you probably realised there was a problem.’
‘I had heard there was some to-ing and fro-ing.’
‘I would have liked to put you into DFID, but the timing is not quite right. However, I have something in mind for you, at the level you want, development-type things, in the reshuffle.’
So, all is not quite lost, but what can he possibly be thinking of? And what did he mean ‘at the level you want’? Obviously word has reached him that I am reluctant (for the second time) to trade a select committee chairmanship for the lowest form of life in government.
There wasn’t much time to reflect. As soon as I put down the phone, I reported back to Jean and toddled off to chair the committee. Later, I heard that Hilary Benn had been appointed. Lucky old Hilary. That’s the second time he has stepped into my shoes, but I can’t complain. He’s a good choice, brilliant and everyone likes him. Later, David Hanson whispered to me that the reshuffle would be at the end of June. I remarked that the entire episode had been about the Foreign Office regaining control of foreign policy, to which he replied, ‘You are very astute, Chris.’
Wednesday, 14 May
To the weekly meeting of the parliamentary party to hear Charles Clarke rattling off facts and figures designed to prove that all is for the best – at one point he recited a little table which included the percentage of youngsters in higher education in Iceland. Even Charles, however, with his bulldozer delivery and utter self-confidence, cannot disguise the fact that education is in a mess. Students and teachers loathe us and local authorities are apoplectic about our attempt to blame them for the latest funding fiasco.
Top-up fees and the Tory attempt to outflank us came up again at the parliamentary committee in the afternoon. The Man replied that the Tories’ sums didn’t add up and predicted confidently that they would unravel. Gordon Prentice brought the meeting to life. ‘Policymaking,’ he asserted, ‘is like the dance of the seven veils. Policy seems to be made by the few for the many.’ He went down the card – Foundation hospitals, top-up fees, the Euro. ‘Who is consulted?’ he demanded, adding mischievously, ‘Just an observation.’
That really set The Man off. I haven’t seen him so passionate in a long while. As for the Euro, he said, the Cabinet will take the final decision. Tuition fees were not dreamed up by some boffin in Number 10. They were first suggested by Ron Dearing. The idea for Foundation hospitals came from the hospitals themselves, not Number 10. By now he was as worked up as he ever gets, using his hands like an Italian. ‘Tuition fees may be right or they may be wrong, but they have nothing to do with arrogance or a presidential style. In the end we have to decide.’
He went on for about five minutes with Gordon lobbing in the occasional hand grenade. Above all, The Man said, we must avoid having the sort of debate that
the Tories and the media wanted – about spin doctors and aides in Number 10. ‘That will be the death of this government.’
Jean, who earlier had her regular private audience, reported later that he had apologised over what happened to me and confirmed that I would receive an offer come the reshuffle.
Thursday, 15 May
Mike O’Brien took me aside after the division in the afternoon and whispered that he was thinking of resigning.
‘When?’
‘Tonight.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I don’t believe what I am being asked to say about the existence of weapons of mass destruction. The security service is still saying they will be found, but I don’t believe them. Even if they are, I no longer believe that they were ever a threat – although I did at the time.’ He added that Clare was right about what’s going on over the latest UN resolution. ‘It’s a mess. The Americans aren’t making the slightest effort. Jack is not happy, but he tends to believe what Colin Powell tells him.’
‘Have you spoken to Jack?’
‘I’ve been trying for three weeks, but he won’t see me. He knows what I want to say.’
Mike wanted my advice. ‘Stay put,’ I said. The war is over. There is no longer any great issue of principle at stake that requires another act of self-immolation.
Later, Jack – just back from South Africa (and looking as though he had been no further than a day trip to Blackburn) – strolled into the near-deserted Tea Room. ‘What happened?’ he asked, adding that as promised he had passed word to The Man immediately after our exchange on Monday. I told him, taking care to mention that I had voted against the war (I didn’t want him hearing that from Hilary Armstrong); he didn’t bat an eyelid. I mentioned The Man’s promise of a development-type job. ‘That’ll be the Africa job at the Foreign Office,’ he said, ‘the one that Valerie Amos has vacated.’ Of course, it is. I went immediately to the Library and looked it up in the list of ministerial responsibilities. It is only a lowly under-secretaryship and – despite what The Man said – I very much doubt whether it will turn into a minister of state’s job. Never mind. If it is offered, I will take it. This is my last chance to do anything useful in government.
Tuesday, 20 May
Another afternoon on the Criminal Justice Bill. Today we nodded through Blunkett’s plans for ratcheting up life sentences and doubling (from 7 to 14 days) the length of time that terrorist suspects can be held without trial. Both of these measures have only appeared in the last ten days, so there had been no previous opportunity for discussion (apart from a little informal session that I and half a dozen members of the committee had with him last week).
Wednesday, 21 May
Mandelson is up to his tricks again. In a supposedly off the record speech to women lobby correspondents (who always seem to leak) he remarked, apropos the Euro, that The Man had been ‘outmanoeuvred by an obsessive Chancellor’. Suddenly all hell has broken loose. Why can’t Peter keep his trap shut? He can’t bear not being the centre of attention. The only reason anybody listens to him is because they assume he is speaking for The Man, which, these days at least, is not very likely. Number 10 were quick to distance themselves, but the damage is done. ‘Some of us spent 18 years in Opposition and we don’t want to go down that road again,’ said Clive Soley to a lot of ‘hear-hearing’ at the meeting of the parliamentary party this morning. At the committee in the afternoon, The Man said that, contrary to rumour, ‘Gordon and I have had very good discussions’; he was confident that a reasonable solution will emerge. Jean said there was dismay in the way that personal discussions appeared to leak into the press. I said that I hoped Peter’s friends would make clear to him that his contribution had been unhelpful. ‘It astonishes me that someone whose judgement is normally so good, could make such a misjudgement.’
‘Maybe it wasn’t a misjudgement,’ muttered JP.
The Man gave us one of his helpless shrugs that he reserves for occasions like this. At some point the phone rang. The Man ignored it. JP leaned across, lifted the receiver and then replaced it, prompting a sudden flurry of activity among the bag-carriers. David Hanson appeared at The Man’s side and whispered, ‘You’ve got to take that call.’
Someone said, to general merriment, ‘It’s George Bush again’, whereupon JP suddenly sprang to life. ‘Have I just put down the phone on George Bush?’ he beamed. ‘That’s made my day.’ Then, while everyone was giggling, ‘I don’t want that appearing in the diaries …’
‘Why ever not?’ I said. ‘It’ll do wonders for your street cred.’
Later, I checked: it wasn’t George Bush, after all. Damn.
Thursday, 22 May
While waiting for a bus to the Commons this morning, I noticed a villainous-looking male disappear into a neighbour’s garden. I followed and found him peering into the basement window. When challenged he claimed to be looking for a friend in Camberwell New Road, half a mile away, but instead of heading in that direction he disappeared around the corner into Lorn Road. I found him in the back lane, apparently casing the rear of our terrace. A white male, in his late thirties, of south European appearance but with a London accent. A can of lager in one hand (at 9 a.m.), ‘criminal’ written all over him in large letters. On seeing me, he turned nasty. ‘Are you calling me a burglar,’ he snarled putting his face menacingly close to mine. ‘I don’t know what you are up to,’ I replied angrily, ‘I’ve been done three times already this year and I’m fed up with it.’ I thought he was going to hit me at first, but he dawdled brazenly away up Lorn Road, still peering in windows. When I got to the House 15 minutes later, I rang Brixton police station, but the phone didn’t answer. I rang Kennington, but that didn’t answer either. I rang the direct line of DC Adams, the officer who has been dealing with my latest burglary. One of his colleagues answered, but wasn’t interested; instead he diverted me to the switchboard, but it still wasn’t answering. I gave up. No wonder the criminals are so brazen.
Sunday, 25 May
The Holmes, St Boswells
We are back with Mrs Dale again. A handsome young white horse gallops around the field trailed by the usual quota of donkeys, pigs, goats, geese and various exotic species of chicken. We spent the afternoon in the Duke of Sutherland’s glorious garden at Mertoun and once again had the place almost to ourselves.
Tuesday, 27 May
I am sitting by the Tweed reading Roy Jenkins’s biography of Gladstone. In most respects a masterpiece, except that Roy is almost as pompous and long-winded as his hero. Palmerston said of Gladstone, ‘He had the ability to persuade himself of the rightness of any view which he chose to hold.’ Of whom does that remind one?
Saturday, 31 May
We packed our chattels, bade our farewells and departed, meandering home via the Wallace Monument, Scott’s View, the Hirsel (for lunch), the beach at Bamburgh and finally tea with Charles and Barbara Baker-Cresswell. We reached Sunderland at nine to find our back entrance blocked by a dumped car, which fortunately we managed to shift with the help of a passing youth.
Sunday, 1 June
The Man is in trouble over his failure to come up with evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Clare is in the papers this morning saying we were duped and the Americans have been saying for some days that they were never really all that important anyway. The Man, who is floating between a knees-up in St Petersburg and the G8 summit at Evian, is still insisting that evidence will be discovered (and even hinting that it has been) but his protestations are beginning to look a little thin. The vultures are circling. This could end badly. Just my luck, were I to rejoin the regime as it slides beneath the waves.
Should I stick with the select committee after all?
Tuesday, 3 June
The row over Iraq is growing. It is being suggested that The Man, or at least someone in Number 10, ‘improved’ the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in order to justify the war. One or two of our more excitable colleagues, ever ready to believe t
he worst, are using words like ‘Watergate’. Demand for an inquiry is growing and I can’t see how it can be resisted. Jean went to see Sally Morgan this afternoon to say that there has to be an inquiry and that the report must be published and debatable in Parliament. According to Jean, Sally says that, far from exaggerating the intelligence, Number 10 toned it down. Jean thinks The Man will survive. I am not so sure. Iraq is beginning to boomerang.
To the Lords to listen to the debate on the Communications Bill, now on its sixth day. The prospects for an uprising over Channel Five look promising. Only the two front benches seem determined to plough on regardless.
Wednesday, 4 June
A rousing speech from JP at this morning’s meeting of the parliamentary party. A tour de force. JP at his most lucid; positively fluent, indeed. The integrity of the government is at stake, he warned. If we lose that we lose everything. At one point he proclaimed, ‘Tony Blair is not a liar.’ The very fact that he needed to make such an assertion is a measure of the trouble we are in. He also made the very reasonable point that most of those on our side who are self-indulgently going on television demanding inquiries and signing motions occupy safe seats and all they are doing is jeopardising the survival of colleagues in the marginals. He sat down to warm applause.
As if we haven’t got enough trouble, John Reid was plastered all over the front page of today’s Times alleging that a rogue element – ‘or elements’ – in the security services are briefing against the government. This morning he had one of his memorable head to heads with John Humphrys on the Today programme on the subject. All very amusing, but do we really need this?
Everyone was holding their breath at Questions, but they needn’t have worried. As always when in a corner, The Man was on top form. He knocked IDS, who kept coming back for more, all around the chamber. Easy wins in the chamber, however, are not enough this time. The feeling that we were misled over Iraq is widespread and it is beginning to infect everything. In the debate that followed, Clare again accused The Man of deceit. There is no doubt she is trying to bring him down. We are walking on egg-shells. One little push from Gordon and the entire edifice could crumble. My guess is that Gordon will wait for the inquiries – one by the Foreign Affairs committee and one by the Intelligence and Security Committee – to report and, if they are damaging enough, he will make his move then. We badly need to find a stash of nerve gas.
