by Chris Mullin
Fresh from his rout of IDS, The Man was upbeat at the parliamentary committee. ‘Have no doubt,’ he said. ‘It is more than my life’s worth to start mucking around with stuff from the Joint Intelligence Committee.’ He was also confident that incriminating evidence would be uncovered. The BBC source – alleging that nothing has been found – had got it wrong. ‘We have turned up stuff that is still in the process of being verified. It will come out in due course. Let’s not give a running commentary.’ He was sure that the Iraqi scientists would eventually cough up. ‘Obviously the scientists aren’t going to cooperate, if they think they are going to end up in front of a war crimes tribunal.’ We must beware, he said, of falling into the trap that the Tories and the media were setting for us. ‘If they can’t destroy the policy, they will destroy trust in the government and me in particular. There is a tendency for our folk to fall for right-wing propaganda. The centre-left’s capacity for committing hara-kiri is legendary. There is a tendency to say that because the Tories are so hopeless we can do what we like, but we can’t.’
After The Man had gone talk turned to the latest demands from the Electoral Commission, which brought Paul Boateng, who doesn’t usually say much, briefly to life. ‘We’ve created a monster and it’s all our fault. None of them have any political experience. These are people who have spent all their lives being Great and Good. They have never sullied their hands with the things to which we have devoted our lives.’ It was agreed that Sam Younger be invited to address the parliamentary party and that the other parties be encouraged to do likewise in the hope that exposure to the political realities will cause the commissioners to mitigate their demands.
Later, in the corridor behind the Speaker’s chair, I came across Alan Milburn and we had a little sotto voce conversation about the current state of play. He shares my view that the situation is dangerous. ‘Some of our colleagues have decided they want regime change here.’ He thinks Clare could run as a stalking horse for Gordon. ‘We need to have a grown-up conversation with the unions. Tony must tread carefully and not just say, as he has in the past, fuck them.’ He added, ‘We’d be mad to get rid of the most successful prime minister for years.’ He went away saying he was going discreetly to check the party’s standing orders to see how many MPs would be needed to endorse a challenge.
Thursday, 5 June
A quiet chat with Robin Cook, behind the screens at the far end of the Tea Room. ‘I think we’re in trouble,’ he said. ‘The news over the next month or so will be dominated by the American congressional hearings. The problem is that the Americans never wanted to use WMD as the reason for going to war. They only went along with it to keep us happy and now that the war is over, they no longer see the need to keep up the pretence.’ The Man, says Robin, will ‘probably be acquitted of lying, but he will be very damaged’. He will want to talk about anything but Iraq, but it won’t go away. The one thing he will not face up to is that to focus on WMD was a mistake. ‘All he keeps saying is, “This is what the intelligence said at the time.”’ Robin said that this side of an election Gordon was the only possible successor. After the election, it would be a different story.
Home as usual on the 20.00. JP was on board and stopped by for a brief chat. He was robust: ‘No one can touch Blair. There isn’t going to be an election this year.’ Clare, he said, is very bitter. He reckons Robin is, too (over losing the Foreign Office) – ‘but he’s not making the same mistakes as Clare’. He went on, apparently referring to The Man and Gordon, ‘I’ve got to live with the two of them. One’s concerned with his legacy. The other with his inheritance.’ He added with a laugh, ‘It’s nice to be normal.’
Friday, 6 June
Sunderland
At the monthly meeting of the management committee in the evening people were openly saying that The Man should go and that the talk in the clubs is that no one trusts him any more. Oh dear, oh dear.
Monday, 9 June
A reshuffle is expected this week and I am among the expectant. The Call could come at any time and I can’t make up my mind how to respond. First, because there is a fair chance that The Man will be gone by the end of the year in which case, were I to accept his offer, I shall be left high and dry, having sacrificed my select committee chairmanship, my place on the parliamentary committee and a certain amount of self-respect. Second because, despite my messages, the odds are it will be a humble under-secretaryship. Dare I again trade one of the main select committee chairmanships for the lowest form of life in government? If I am cast aside after six months, there will be no shortage of people muttering, ‘Serves him right.’
Thursday, 12 June
The House is eerily deserted. ‘Here’s a man who won’t be waiting by his telephone,’ remarked one of the Tory whips as we passed in an otherwise empty corridor. Little does he know.
Friday, 13 June
Sunderland
I was visiting Havelock Primary School when Pat rang to say that Hilary Armstrong wanted to talk. Why Hilary, I thought. This can only be bad news. In the event it wasn’t. Not quite. She was calling to sound me out on whether I’d be willing to take an under-secretaryship since (as I anticipated) there are no suitable vacancies at minister of state level. I had been considered for Michael Meacher’s job at Environment, but Margaret Beckett felt strongly – and who could argue – that it should go to Elliot Morley. Would I be interested in either Elliot’s job at Environment or the Africa job at the Foreign Office? I closed my eyes and plumped for Africa. Then I drove to Durham Cathedral for the funeral of poor John Williams.* When I got back there was a message to ring The Man. The conversation lasted less than a minute. He said he was delighted and I said I was, too, though in truth I am riven with doubt. I may have booked a third-class berth on the Titanic.
Saturday, 14 June
Jack Straw rang, just as I was departing for my quarterly haircut. ‘One condition,’ he said. ‘You must get a pager and a mobile phone.’
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘but no official car.’
‘Up to you, but there will be a lot of highly classified stuff which can’t be taken by public transport.’
He went on, ‘A lot of very bright people work in the Foreign Office, but they do need watching otherwise they go off and do their own thing.’
Monday, 16 June
Everywhere I go I am showered with congratulations (we do spend a lot of time congratulating each other in this place), but among the more discerning there is bewilderment. ‘You have sold yourself cheap,’ a not unfriendly Tory whip remarked. George Young said much the same. Perhaps, but I do have one strong card. I am the only member of the government to have voted against the Iraq adventure. No one can accuse me of having sold my soul for a job.
Tuesday, 17 June
A barely legible handwritten note from Gordon Brown offering congratulations on my new incarnation. If the past is anything to go by, every new minister will have received an identical missive. ‘A great challenge,’ he said. Actually, my principal challenge will be to survive if Gordon becomes leader.
Wednesday, 18 June
The Foreign Office
Day Three. I still take wrong turnings on the way to and from my luxurious apartment (I even have my own bathroom). Everything is larger than life. Ceilings so high as to be in the clouds, huge double doors which can only be opened with effort, miles of polished corridors, marble statues, pillars, vast (politically incorrect) murals. One half expects to see Sir Edward Grey or Lord Halifax sweeping down the grand staircase. Today I returned from lunch to find the Princess Royal on the steps outside my French windows, addressing a reception in the Durbar Court.
I sit alone in my vast room, behind my oh-so-large desk, the half-dozen boys and girls in the private office commute back and forth attending to my every need. When I close the door there is no sound but the ticking of the clocks on my two mantelpieces. I feel as though I am trapped in the penthouse suite of a five-star hotel, far removed from life in the streets of London, ne
ver mind Africa. At any moment I could be asked to pay the bill and leave.
The news from Africa is unremittingly, mind-numbingly awful.
Mayhem in Liberia, barbarism in the Congo, looming famine in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, entire peoples laid low by Aids. Almost everywhere power is in the hands of corrupt elites, stuffing their pockets with little concern for the welfare of their people. The countries with the greatest natural wealth are in the worst condition because they have assets worth plundering.
Here and there a ray of light. Mozambique, after years of chaos, is said to be doing reasonably; Uganda, too (although President Museveni is showing signs of the disease that eventually afflicts most African leaders, good and bad – a reluctance to contemplate retirement). In Kenya, after 24 years of corrupt dictatorship, there has been (to everyone’s surprise) a peaceful transfer of power. In Angola the 30-year civil war is over, although the problems of reconstruction are awesome. How, from my luxurious boudoir in Whitehall, can I hope to make the slightest impact on all this?
Monday, 23 June
A quiet word from Jack. ‘Just so you are aware, there is a bit of chatter about the fact that you voted against the government on Iraq …’ Bob Ainsworth, the Deputy Chief Whip, said something similar.
Tuesday, 24 June
Jean Corston whispered that The Man had told her that the Chief Whip, Hilary Armstrong, is reporting ‘unhappiness’ at my elevation. Jean responded that no one had complained to her. Quite so. It’s all coming from Hilary and the whips.
Wednesday, 25 June
Mike O’Brien has also heard bleating from the whips about my appointment. Odd that the small minds in the whips’ office can’t grasp that, in these difficult times, The Man needs to be building bridges rather than dynamiting them.
Wednesday, 2 July
Among the issues which crossed my desk today the tricky question of what to do about the Liberian warlord, Charles Taylor. Everyone agrees that he is a very bad man and that it is in Liberia’s best interests that he be persuaded to leave the country as soon as possible. The difficulty is that the Special Prosecutor in Sierra Leone has, without consulting anyone, issued a warrant for Taylor’s arrest, thereby derailing peace talks that were underway in Ghana and causing Taylor to scuttle back to his bunker in the capital, Monrovia, triggering a new wave of mayhem in which hundreds have died and thousands are facing starvation. The only way out is for Taylor to be offered a safe passage out of the country; indeed the Nigerians have generously offered to take him. Before doing so, however, they very reasonably wish to be assured that they will not be criticised for harbouring an indicted war criminal. The dilemma for us is that, having helped to set up and fund the war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone, we can’t be seen to undermine it. The recommendation is that some weasel words (or as the official note puts it ‘a more nuanced line’) be found in the hope of squaring the circle. Needless to say I concur. There is no room for the pure of heart in the Foreign Office.
Thursday, 3 July
Among my visitors today the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Africa, Ibrahim Gambari, a former Foreign Minister of Nigeria. Intelligent, decent, wise. Makes one realise that there are many good men in Africa. It’s just a question of giving them a helping hand.
Monday, 7 July
In at the deep end. Today, at short notice, I was called upon to respond to an emergency question from Douglas Hogg on the news that the Americans are planning to bring before military tribunals two of our citizens held in Guantanamo Bay. Maximum indignation all round. The questions come thick and fast. How dare they? By what right? What’s the government doing? Why aren’t we making a bigger fuss? And so on for half an hour. After initial hesitation, I just about held the line. By the end I was even ticking off the Tories for indulging in megaphone diplomacy. The line is that we are making the strongest representations, but are we? Certainly Jack is sending a tough letter to Colin Powell, but the trouble is we are up against Rumsfeld and the Pentagon and strong messages to the State Department won’t make the blindest difference. If we are to get anywhere, The Man will have to tackle George Bush and there is no evidence so far that he has done so.
Tuesday, 8 July
An amusing little memorandum crossed my desk today on the subject of national day messages. Apparently the world is divided into A, B and C countries, according to the extent of our approval for their governments. A countries receive national day messages as a matter of course. B countries ‘we need to consider carefully, but with a presumption to send perhaps a toned-down message’. For C countries there is a presumption against sending any kind of message. I am asked to approve the elevation of Gambia from B to A, the downgrading of the Central African Republic from B to C, and the promotion of Eritrea and the Congo from C to B. Anxious to demonstrate how seriously I take my responsibilities, I vetoed the proposal for the promotion of Eritrea.
Wednesday, 9 July
‘Congratulations on your performance the other day,’ remarked Michael Howard as we passed on the Upper Committee Corridor, ‘a masterpiece of semi-detachment.’ Oh dear, was it really? The trouble with compliments from Michael Howard is that one can never be sure whether they are intended to cheer up or demoralise.
A visit from the Secret Intelligence Service. The ‘Two Michaels’ as they are known in the office. Smooth, affable, apparently anxious to please. The extent to which they level with ministers, particularly junior ones, is impossible to gauge. As Tom, my Private Secretary, pointed out afterwards, most of their sentences contain tiny qualifying clauses. They invited me to visit them at Vauxhall, an offer I accepted with alacrity.
Thursday, 10 July
My pager has arrived. From now on (assuming I can work the damn thing) I shall be entirely on-message.
Tuesday, 15 July
Ministerial life is full of surprises. This afternoon I returned from lunch to find preparations underway in the Durbar Court for some grand event.
‘What’s going on?’ I innocently inquired.
‘A reception. For Chevening scholars. About 500 people. You’re speaking.’
The moment came. The scholars and their sponsors were assembled. The French windows leading from my room into the Durbar Court swung open. A man with a gavel banged on a table. I stepped grandly up to the microphone and made my little speech. Then I mingled. A man from Prudential Insurance bore down on me. ‘I’m having lunch with the Vietnamese Ambassador tomorrow,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ said I, ‘he’s a friend of mine. Please give him my regards.’
The Man from the Pru was momentarily nonplussed. ‘But you’re hosting the lunch!’
Monday, 21 July
Ghana
This is going to be one of those weeks when I get to play at being The Man. From the moment my foot touches the soil of Africa I shall not be permitted to carry my own bag, to open a door or to walk unaided for more than a few paces. There will be servants, bodyguards, sojourns in VIP lounges and throughout I shall be addressed as ‘Excellency’ (there are many Excellencies in Africa and most of them are not all that excellent).
High Commissioner’s Residence, Accra
I had visions of an old colonial mansion, yellow stucco and green wooden shutters, à la Dalat or Hanoi. Alas, however, the residence is a 1960s job, all glass and concrete. A whiff of damp pervades the guest suite. Previous occupants of my bed include the Princess Royal and Clare Short.
Tuesday, 22 July
Terrible things going on in Liberia, just up the road. Everyone is waiting for the Americans, but Bush is dithering. The State Department are saying openly that Rumsfeld is the problem. Word is that he would prefer to close the embassy in Liberia and make a run for it, leaving the wretched Liberians to their fate. I sent word to Jack suggesting I say something tough about the American position (perhaps including the word ‘shameful’) on the basis that the only hope of engaging the attention of the Americans is to upset them and I am better placed than he to express such senti
ments. According to my Private Secretary, Tom, there were several sharp intakes of breath as he relayed my message to HQ.
Thursday, 24 July
Freetown, Sierra Leone
A message from Jack, delivered via his Private Secretary: ‘Tell Chris that, if he criticises the Americans, he’s on his own.’
Tuesday, 29 July
London
To Lancaster House for a pow-wow with President Obasanjo of Nigeria.
Purpose of exercise: to impress upon the old rogue that if – and it is a
big if – he is serious about improving the lot of his much put-upon people, we are willing to pull out all the stops to assist.
Facing us across the table His Magnificence the President, resplendent in flowing Yoruba robes, his bloated features topped by a purple and gold head-dress. On the wall behind, only marginally more colourful, a life-size portrait of debauched-looking Charles II in full regalia. On the President’s right, in deep-blue national dress, his impressive new Minister of Finance, a woman in her forties who long ago fled her homeland for the warm bosom of the World Bank and who, as she later made clear, has only with the greatest reluctance been persuaded to forsake the comforts of Washington to take charge of the black hole that is Nigeria’s economy. Other members of the President’s considerable entourage include the Foreign Minister, the governor of the State Bank and an assortment of experts, advisers and heavies airlifted into London on the President’s plane, which is, according to Tom who has travelled in it, the last word in vulgar luxury.
