Free Radical

by Cable, Vincent

  The lesson of Charles Kennedy’s political success on the Iraq War was the need to muscle in on the story; to take risks; to challenge; to avoid being sucked into any cosy establishment consensus; and to tap into popular idealism, anger and frustration – the politics of protest. Although we were distinctive on civil liberties and environmental issues, despite rather half-hearted attempts by David Cameron to move into that particular space, there was no early successor to Iraq as a defining issue, and the result was growing invisibility. We had to raise our game.

  All of this is not a criticism of my predecessors, since I had been at the heart of efforts, at least in relation to economic policy, to forswear easy, populist campaigning stunts in favour of policies that gave us credibility. There is a tension in any opposition party between the need to milk public applause and seek the approval of well-read newspapers on one hand, and to appear credible as a party of government – competent, responsible and economically literate – on the other. As leader, however, I decided to take risks and sail closer to the wind, helped by an excellent media team and a press officer, Puja Darbari, who understood exactly what I was trying to achieve and was brilliant in securing the necessary publicity.

  The first issue that surfaced, within days of my becoming leader, was the imminent visit of the king of Saudi Arabia, and an invitation to Buckingham Palace to attend a banquet in the king’s honour. I decided to stay away, partly to protest at the kingdom’s appalling human rights record, but also to draw attention to the cynical way in which our own government, and its Conservative predecessor, had been corrupted by the massive Al Yamamah arms contract. Most recently, the Serious Fraud Office had been stopped by ministers from pursuing a bribery investigation into BAe Systems’ dealings with Saudi Arabia. The issue had become an important one for the party, and I had introduced three debates in Parliament on the subject. The king’s visit was a golden opportunity to raise awareness of it. My media team were 100 per cent behind my proposal to boycott the Saudi visit, but some colleagues were very nervous: the Palace and the Foreign Office would be deeply offended; my gesture might be seen as anti-Arab and/or anti-Islamic; BAe Systems jobs were at stake; precedents would be set for future leaders and future state visits. I decided to ignore the objections while making it clear that I was not advocating a general boycott of Saudi Arabia, but did oppose the accolade of a state visit and the obsequiousness with which our government was treating the House of Saud. My main worry was that no one would notice or care what the acting leader of a third party thought. But they did. There was an enormous groundswell of support outside the Westminster village and what I said clearly touched a raw nerve.

  Another opportunity was presented by the growing crisis in the banking sector, centring on the Northern Rock bank. I had already created a stir at the time of the earlier run on the bank in September by attacking the government’s decision to bail out the bank with loans (as opposed to protecting the depositors without taking it into public ownership). I also publicly blamed the senior management of the bank for recklessness and personal greed, a view that clashed badly with the official view that they had simply been the victim of bad luck, a US-generated credit crunch. It soon became clear that the government had taken on a vast, open-ended commitment to lending enormous sums – up to £30 billion – with only partial security; that the senior management had indeed behaved very badly; and that the government’s preferred option of being marriage-broker for a private sale of the bank was unlikely to work or, if it did, would reward private speculators at the expense of the taxpayer. With help from my Treasury team colleague Matthew Oakeshott, a City expert who shared my instinct for an aggressive approach to the issue – unlike the Conservatives who kept their heads well down – I challenged the government’s handling of the matter. We advocated temporary public ownership as the best way of protecting the state’s enormous stake in the bank and ensuring that any upside from a subsequent sale would accrue to the taxpayer, not to someone like Richard Branson.

  Such credibility as I and my colleagues won over this issue was due in part to long-standing warnings about the problems that would arise from rapid expansion of bank lending to households, much of it secured against a bubble in the housing market and resulting in high levels of household debt. The immediate trigger for the Northern Rock crisis lay in international capital markets rather than our domestic property market. But Northern Rock’s wild lending spree pumped up our housing bubble. And the coincidence of falling property prices and a pronounced economic slowdown, which I had warned of for several years, was beginning to become a reality, though at that stage only just beginning.

  Gordon Brown’s other embarrassments came thick and fast: bitter and personalized criticisms from service chiefs; the loss of personal data on twenty-five million people due to extreme carelessness by HM Revenue and Customs; allegedly illegal and certainly very questionable handling of party donations. Any opposition leader would be seriously remiss not to turn this succession of disasters to advantage. My challenge was to ensure that the Conservatives did not monopolize the airwaves and to find the right blend of serious criticism, righteous indignation and humour to capture the tragi-comedy of Gordon Brown’s decline.

  The political commentators were complimentary, sometimes gushingly so. I worried that I was being talked up so that my predecessor and successor could be talked down. I also marvelled at the low threshold at which political criticism switches to adulation. A few weeks earlier David Cameron was being treated as a cross between Churchill and Abraham Lincoln for the rather modest achievement of having memorized a speech; now I was acquiring cult status on the back of a few well-directed one-liners, after a decade’s worth of serious speeches and articles, and even jokes, had previously sunk without trace. Still, I decided not to worry too much about the problems of success, but to enjoy it.

  The delicious icing on the cake came when my press officer and the production team of Andrew Neil’s late-night show, This Week, used my long-standing interest in ballroom and Latin dancing to pair me with Alesha Dixon, the talented and beautiful winner of Strictly Come Dancing. Becoming the envy of every man in Britain, with an invitation to write about dancing, rather than politics, for the Mail on Sunday, would have been beyond my wildest imaginings three months earlier.

  Chapter 14

  Fame, Fortune and Notoriety

  We are all entitled, as Andy Warhol reminded us, to fifteen minutes of fame. I have been fortunate to enjoy some for two years, beyond the more parochial recognition in my constituency and party. I am conscious that fame is transitory. For most of us, and for opposition politicians more than most, there is also the serious limitation that it is disconnected from power and decision-making. But I am grateful for the opportunity, as long as it lasts, to communicate political ideas and ideals to a wider audience, to promote my party, and to realize some personal ambitions that have been incubated in obscurity for decades.

  This has occurred unusually late in life. Older politicians, like older people in general, are expected to fade away quietly to make way for those who are younger, fresher, more ambitious and energetic. A gentler, less demanding, more dignified role awaits in the Lords or on the boards of companies or charities. I can certainly see the disadvantages of gerontocracy and would not want us to emulate Mao’s Chinese politburo where eighty was middle-aged. But our opposite stereotype is no better. I have discovered, by accident rather than design, that age is not inversely correlated with energy and commitment.

  I am, nonetheless, very conscious of mortality. I had never seen anyone die until the person closest to me died in 2001. I have, ever since, lived with that experience, and one of its legacies was a determination to live life to the full, to squeeze as much as possible out of every day, conscious always that time is slipping away. Having the additional blessing of a very contented second marriage has made it easier to be focused and single-minded. As a consequence, I work harder than I have ever done, and more effectively. Age greatly
increases productivity. Articles that would have taken days to grind out now take an hour or so. My wonderfully efficient PA, Joan Bennett, ensures that every minute is sensibly utilized. I have developed some skill in improvising speeches and presentations, and this economizes on time and effort and actually helps to build a rapport with live audiences. So I do many more. Occasionally, what my wife Rachel calls the T-word – tiredness – creeps in subversively, but then older people need less sleep, and a little R & R goes a long way.

  I am often asked why I am not the party leader and whether I still want to be. The unexciting truth is that I am perfectly happy as I am, playing the role of number two to Nick Clegg. As I noted earlier, there were a few days after the resignation of Ming Campbell when I sounded out colleagues about a leadership bid, but it was clear that there was a collective wish to move on to the new generation that Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne represented. I settled into the role of acting leader for a couple of months and was reconciled to handing over responsibility after our enormously protracted leadership process.

  In those weeks I satisfied myself, and surprised others, that I could handle competently or better the role our leader has to play in Parliament and the media, as well as motivating our troops in the party and the country. My reaction at the end was: been there, done that. I have, moreover, many faults, but vanity is not one of them. I have always moved effortlessly from the spotlight to the shadows and there is a particular pleasure to be had from enjoying prominence and (in my case, modest) power without feeling the need for them.

  I am not the only politician in Westminster to have discovered that there are more satisfying roles than being a party leader. Iain Duncan Smith and William Hague have both reinvented themselves. They, like me, now have the best of all worlds: an enviable degree of respect and affection, and considerable influence, without the intrigue that surrounds those who control access to the greasy pole of preferment, and the need to explain every minor gaffe or justify every disappointing opinion poll.

  I can now look at the party’s future, and my own, with more detachment than if I carried all the burdens of leadership: the endless ridicule and abuse from opponents and commentators; the importuning for jobs, peerages and influence; the resentment of sacked colleagues and lack of gratitude from promoted protégés; the untimely press leaks and prolonged publicity droughts; opinionated, unelected supporters demanding that their views be accepted; councillors, backbenchers and MEPs pressing for greater recognition; superannuated peers fighting old battles; and the likelihood that none of this will lead to any more long-term recognition than a painting on the wall in Portcullis House, probably tucked away in an unvisited corner.

  Being leader of the Liberal Democrats has been described as one of the toughest jobs in British politics, and with good reason. There is a high level of responsibility – for leading sixty-three MPs; three thousand councillors (more, now, than the Labour Party); a bevy of lords and MEPs, MSPs and Assembly Members – and it includes maintaining, and building upon, the 20 per cent or so of popular support we can reasonably expect. There is the hope rather than the expectation of imminent national power, so the loyalty of supporters has to be based on trust and team spirit rather than the prospect of spoils which keeps Conservative and Labour politicians motivated. We are regarded by our two main opponents as a nuisance, an added, unwanted complication and a worrying uncertainty, and they try to deal with us by ignoring us or resorting to ridicule. The media, especially that which is unsympathetic to our cause, reflects these tactical ploys and even editors or journalists who want to be fair-minded find triangular debate difficult to accommodate. As a consequence, our leaders find it difficult to be heard. There is a daily battle to get a slot in the main news for the leader or a leading spokesman. Leading the Liberal Democrats is like leading a biblical tribe of nomadic pastoralists across a semi-arid landscape, constantly looking for the water of favourable publicity. There are frequent droughts, for which the leader is held responsible. What sustains us is a sense that there is a promised land.

  Nick Clegg is well equipped for this difficult task. Apart from the obvious qualities of intelligence and articulacy, he has a strong character and equable temperament, which will emerge in the heat of a general election battle; a clear sense of strategic direction; and sufficient resilience to cope with the endless pin-pricks, disappointments and unflattering reviews that are the lot of leadership. My impression is that he is big enough to welcome a high-profile deputy, and we have formed a good partnership.

  *

  One of the more gratifying experiences of the recent past is having (among various awards) been chosen as Parliamentarian of the Year. This award is the result of a poll of MPs of all parties and is all the more appreciated for reflecting non-tribal support. The experience has led me to reflect on what being a parliamentarian actually means.

  It is easy to make the case that Parliament today is a decayed and marginalized – indeed, corrupt – institution. I described earlier the way in which power has seeped away to the executive, as well as to Europe and regional assemblies and the Scottish Parliament. Large parliamentary majorities and the discipline of the whips mean that votes are rarely close or significant. Good oratory is very rare. Abysmal, obsequious speeches on the government side can be a passport to the front bench, where the toadies can enjoy a long ministerial career, reading speeches written by officials and fortified by party propaganda inserted by a special adviser. Oral questions are often based on hand-outs from the party spokespersons and those that are remotely taxing are not answered or invite a partisan response. Serious debates are usually very badly attended once the lead speakers have departed, and often before. And MPs can expect to read in the press, especially after the expenses scandal, that they are greedy freeloaders with their snouts in the trough, enjoying a lavish lifestyle at the taxpayers’ expense. Even those of us who emerged unscathed and without criticism from the scandal have been diminished by the popular view that parliament is a thoroughly discredited institution.

  But a strong case can also be made that Parliament can rise to the big occasions and, at its best, is still a significant democratic force for good. The ritual of Prime Minister’s Questions, for example, can sometimes be little more than a noisy, childish bunfight. But it also exposes more vividly than any other medium the ability (or not) of prime ministers and potential prime ministers to think quickly on their feet and to communicate their messages simply, clearly and under pressure from three to four hundred noisy MPs. My perhaps overrated, and certainly over-repeated, quip at PMQs about Gordon Brown’s transformation from Stalin to Mr Bean would not have had the impact it did in any other context. William Hague’s wit and Michael Howard’s forensic cross-questioning did not, in the event, translate into wider political success, but Gordon Brown’s failure to master the medium has done much to undermine his credibility and self-confidence; Iain Duncan Smith was seen to be ‘not up to it’; and Ming Campbell’s leadership never recovered from early stumbles in the face of sustained barracking.

  Parliament also stages some fine debates amid the dross. A good minister will stand his or her ground and take repeated interventions, turning them to advantage in building a case. I have been appalled, as many others have, by the recent torrent of Home Office legislation, which my colleagues estimate has produced over three thousand new criminal offences; but I could not help but admire the way Charles Clarke and David Blunkett, in particular, argued their brief. Tony Blair’s defence of the Iraq War may have gone against the grain, but was undeniably impressive. The best debates tend to be on controversial issues that cut across party lines, like the recent legislation on human fertilization and embryology, though they are often spoilt by wickedly unhelpful timetabling.

  The British parliamentary tradition of legislative trial by debate can reach impressive heights, but has been corrupted by the ruthless guillotining of controversial new laws. The moments of high drama are, moreover, diluted greatly in their impact by in
terminable discussion of the detailed clauses, with a handful of MPs struggling to swim through a treacle of incomprehensible verbiage produced by parliamentary draftsmen.

  Behind the confrontational aspects of Parliament, my experience has been that, off-camera, relations between MPs from different parties are generally amicable and businesslike. A lot of work is done through all-party groups. I established two – for the police and victims of crime – working with professional and pressure groups, and was able to help raise the profile of important issues. One of the most effective cross-party campaigning groups I participate in brings together opponents of Heathrow expansion. The de facto leader is John McDonnell, an independent-minded Labour left-winger, whose constituency includes the proposed new runway, and he sets the tone in blunting whatever ideological axes we try to grind.

  I do not wish to exaggerate the extent of cross-party and non-party working. As an opposition spokesman, I take good care to keep my distance from government ministers, while remaining on affable, first-name terms. Despite shadowing Gordon Brown for five years, and an acquaintance going back thirty years to when we collaborated on the Red Papers for Scotland, I have had little contact with him beyond friendly banter centred on his affected or real surprise that we were on opposite sides in spite of a good deal of ‘progressive’ common ground.