Rowing Against the Tide - A career in sport and politics

by Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  The ballot papers were wondrous to behold, for they displayed a large emblem of each Party, and because of the many Parties, often had to be eighteen inches long. The books of ballot papers were not perforated so that when illegally fistfuls of papers were torn out for ballot box stuffing, it was easy to see what had happened, and that the normal issue of one paper at a time had been ignored. Each Polling Station inside had rows of seats, or rather wooden planks, so that representatives of the parties could see that the process was fair and correct. It was totally ineffective in most of the stations we visited, and some of the conduct was, to put it mildly, violent. Certainly by the afternoon certain elements had clearly swung into action to frustrate free and fair elections.

  I was accompanied by a barrister, and at a station around midday, the presiding officer proudly showed me his register. He claimed that only two more people were to be expected, and he would then have a 100% turnout ! I checked the register, and apart from some dubious names that my barrister noted, it was dated May 1983. I asked my interpreter to complement the presiding officer on what must have been the outstanding quality of the local health service. When this was duly passed on, to the puzzlement of my guide and the officer, I pointed out that the register was three years old, and so not one person in that small town had died ! At another I was greeted by a small boy whose hands were covered with the purple dye that was supposed to be on the one finger that had been used to vote, by pressing against the symbol of the party of his choice. He claimed to have voted many times, and looking at his hands, I had little doubt that he had.

  At another, the presiding officer had locked himself in his office, because not being Bengali, was being accused of favouring some voters against others. At another, a woman was brought in on a small cart, for she had been attacked and had a gash from her hip to her knee. My last station was at the University in Dacca, and being after six o’clock, I duly noted the total electorate, and the number of votes cast at that time. My feeling was that if the returns suddenly showed a full turnout, the credibility of the election would rightly be called into question. As we were leaving the station, we were greeted by gunfire in the road outside, caused by a large group who had already trashed a polling station some mile further back. I quietly asked my guide where our Land-Rover was, and having noted the distance, said –“let’s get the hell out of here”. On returning to the hotel, we were greeted by a hilarious group of journalists who had just left a meeting called by General Ershad. He had stopped the election count, for it wasn’t coming out the way he had planned, and when journalists spoke of the malpractices at the polling stations, he complained about our delegation, though we had said nothing at that point. In any case he claimed that there had only been malpractice reported at 268 polling stations. He could not see the funny side of his remarks. We had a wash-up meeting with our hosts, and when asked, I had sadly to say their election was almost irrelevant to the majority of Bangladeshis, since we had been told that the population was growing at around two and a half million a year, that the country could no longer feed its people, and relied on 86% of its income from overseas aid. I said I felt that until they resolved that conundrum, it was unlikely any Government could obtain the willing support of its people or solve it’s problems.

  When I returned from that first election I bumped into Norman Tebbitt who was our Party Chairman at that time, and remarked that if he wanted to win the next election with a big majority, “have I found a system for you”! Whilst the second election was a much better run affair, the population had grown even faster than had first been calculated, and therefore the country’s problems were as intractable as ever.

  The second election there in February 1991 was led by Peter Shore with Andrew Bennett from the Labour Party, and David Wilshire and I from the Conservatives. On this occasion the group had been formally invited by the Acting President Shahabuddin, with the Election Commission chaired by the Chief Justice Rouf. The atmosphere of this second election was totally different from the first, for all the stations we visited were calm, and people were seen voting without fear of interference from either police or army personnel. There were of course minor examples of malpractice spotted, but most were stopped by presiding officers who on this occasion seemed confident to act without fear of reprisal. There was the odd case where young boys tried to vote, but were turned away with little more than an indulgent smile. The one truly bad case was an electoral role that had no more than a few percentage of names of genuine voters, and rafts of names that were clearly fictitious. Visiting polling stations both in the City of Dacca, and in the Sylhet region gave us a real picture of what we felt was a reasonably free and fair election.

  On arrival at the Dacca Airport to return home, we checked in our bags and proceeded as we thought to board the plane. We found ourselves at yet another counter where staff were chalk marking cases that they approved for loading, and heard a German traveller having a fearful row with one of the staff who was demanding money before he would pass through his bags. I think it was David who said it was not worth making a fuss, so we paid up and got all our kit stowed onboard.

  I was picked to join a delegation led by Gwyneth Dunwoody to Botswana and Swaziland to run a seminar on local and central government. Botswana seemed a settled country whose population was almost exclusively of the Swana tribe, and perhaps highlighted why some African countries which had been put together by European settlers, and which had two or more distinct tribes, have had such trouble coming to terms with their national identity.

  In a break we flew to the nature reserve in the north of the country, and were met on the rough landing strip by a choir from a local school. The children sang a lovely little song of welcome, written by their school mistress, and when Gwyneth stepped up to reply, she sang her response to the same tune. I was amazed at such a talent, and said so, only to be even more surprised to be told that as a youngster she had been a singer and had trod the boards. We struck up a friendship, and we agreed to pair by arrangement with the whips office, once we were back in Westminster.

  The Swaziland seminar was attended by one of the country’s princesses, a very large and jovial lady, who listened attentively to our presentations. She retired with Gwyneth to a side room, but one of her attendants came out and asked that I join them for further discussions, since the princess preferred my slant on politics to Gwyneth’s. As so often in Parliament, you can fundamentally disagree with a member of an opposing Party, and still be friends. One of our hosts was a South African Brit, who had lived there all of his life, and had fought in the South African Rifles during WW11. On returning to Swaziland he had been appointed to the King’s Government and had retired a few years later. His wife was very talented and on their retirement had established a new business producing fabrics using natural dyes. They lived in a hilltop home which we all christened Sangri La, such was the beauty of the spot. We stood in his garden and he pointed out in the distant far north, the faint outline of a mountain. He then pointed south to a similar mountain. You know, he said, some idiot in the Foreign Office early in the 20th Century, drew a line between the two mountains and the following morning a third of the Swazi tribe found themselves living outside Swaziland in a different country. Looking at the straight lines on many African countries, one can see we have much to answer for.

  For some years, Sally and I had joined the campaign to allow Russian Jews to be allowed to leave Russia. I had been surprised to hear from the Jubilee Committee, which made a presentation to MPs at Westminster, that neither of our Church Leaders in either the Cof E, or the Catholic Church, had sought to help Christian refusniks, presumably on the grounds that they did not want to make waves, and cause even greater trouble for Christians in Russia. As a result the Jubilee Committee had taken up the challenge, and I and many others agreed to assist, pointing out that members of the Jewish community had been running such a campaign for years. Our first success was a nun who was released and went to live in West Germany. However
she was released as a dissenting Jew, and added to the quota of Jewish refusnics granted leave to emigrate, so that there was no record of any persecution of Christians in Russia.

  A human rights visit to Eastern Europe, gave us the unique opportunity to be in Berlin as the Wall came down, and to visit what for a while longer was still the DDR. The trip took us to Czechoslovakia, and to Prague where our resident ambassador could barely bring himself to give us a cup of tea. The day of arrival coincided with their currency being halved in value to the pound, so we did very well indeed. Going out for supper in a hotel overlooking the river in Prague, we noticed the customary display cabinet in the reception area, and we promptly relieved them of its entire offering of beautiful cut glass wear. We naturally visited the concentration camp of Terezenstadt ( Terezin) which was supposed to have been the better face of that outrage to humanity. Looking at the ovens - it wasn’t supposed to be an extermination camp – the taps over the sinks that were not connected to anything, and the wooden shelves that supposedly served as beds, made you think that the International Red Cross were either deaf, blind and dumb, or they were complicit in the evil that was being perpetrated there. One of our party was Lynn Golding the Labour member for Stoke on Trent, who made one of the most moving and influential speeches in the House, during the third reading of the War Crimes Bill. We entrained briefly to Budapest, and I had the chance to meet up with my old friend and rowing colleague Jonny Szabo the Israeli Rowing President, who still tried to spend a couple of months each year in the land of his birth, but would never consider a permanent return.

  Our journey home was broken with a two day stopover in Vienna where we had a chance to spend an hour or so at the Plaza Hotel with Simon Weisenthal. He came over as a kind and gentle character, but the underlying steel and determination that had driven him all those years was also very apparent.

  Sally and I joined a human rights group visiting Russian refusniks in October 91, to what just three weeks before had become St Petersburg. Our aim was to assist those still locked in the no mans land between perestroika and the state bureaucracy fighting to maintain its reason for being. We met a family living in a flat in an old pre-revolution building where three or more families shared certain facilities. They had two rooms and a kitchen which doubled as a bathroom, with a large wooden board to cover the bath when not in use. The two rooms had to double as both living and bedrooms. It had been the home for the couple and their two grown up children. At one stage, they also had to make room for the wife of one of the sons, until they were allocated a home of their own. The parents had applied to be allowed to emigrate seven years before, but because the man had worked in computers, it was presumed he was aware of Government IT secrets, and hence was not allowed to emigrate. In addition to the “State Secrets” excuse, the addition of the “poor relation” clearance requirement was an equal block to a hoped for emigration visa. When we returned we wrote the usual letters to the Russian Embassy and were pleased that after a few months they were granted the right to leave, and they settled in California working for IBM.

  Our Hotel was on the main square with the “Leningrad” parliament building at one end, and a magnificent church at the other. It was owned by a Finnish company who were banking on the opening up of the Russian economy allowing them to at least take some of their profits home. A Scottish baker had opened a business there, but because he could not transfer money back home, he could not buy the things he needed to build his business, and it had folded very quickly. We did have a laugh at one of our group’s expense, for at our first meal, what we may have ordered came in fits and starts, and we agreed to accept whatever was placed in front of us. Baroness Nancy Seer was a lovely lady, but when confronted with her “pudding” remarked that someone has stolen my cherry ! When the remark sank in, she joined in the general hilarity.

  The economics of the new Russia were beyond understanding. Our hotel operated on the basis that all charges were based on an exchange rate of two roubles to the dollar, but the official rate was 200 to the dollar. Out on the main street, the Nevsky Prospekt, you could get 800 roubles to the dollar. We took some Jewish students out for a meal in a pub/restaurant that only took hard currency, and when a student looked at the cost of the dishes on offer, he remarked that he could have had a weeks holiday on the Black Sea for the price of the meal. Six months later I related this tale to the Ukrainian Club in my constituency, when someone in the audience called out that the rate was now 2000 roubles to the dollar. One student asked when Sally and I were going to emigrate to Israel. We asked why would we since we were British citizens, and my family had roots going back over 300 years in England. He was puzzled and asked what was in our passports, and when we replied, why British of course, he pointed out that in Russia if you were Jewish, then that would be in your passport.

  We discovered, though not surprised, that along with perestroika came a rise in anti-Semitism. The same old hate literature such as the Protocols of The Elders of Zion, could be bought on the streets, but there had been great gains as well. After years of being locked and sealed, the Institute of Oriental Studies could now show us the treasures of old Hebrew manuscripts, and the recently reopened synagogue overflowed with thousands seeking to attend High Holy Day services. One of the elders however explained that there were now three categories of Soviet Jews – those who have left – those planning to leave – and those who hope they won’t have to go.

  When we returned, Douglas Hogg asked if I would come and see him for a full debrief of our visit. He had held responsibility for Russian affairs for perhaps nine months at that point, and queried this information with his senior civil servant present. With a Sir Humphrey like pause, the civil servant confirmed our story, and the look on Douglas’s face said it all.

  This was not the only example of Civil Servants holding information back from Ministers, or passing on only what they thought was appropriate. After the 1987 election, Cyril Smith wrote to Douglas highlighting his belief that there had been wide examples of personation in a few of his wards in his Rochdale constituency. Knowing I had a large ethnic population in my constituency, Douglas asked me to join him at a meeting with Cyril. Cyril outlined the pattern of turnout in his constituency, highlighting a much higher turnout in certain wards, that could only have been achieved if personation had taken place. Since I had had a number of such cases, I felt it would be right for Douglas to order some research by his officers. A few weeks later, he sent me the draft of the letter he planned to send to Cyril, but I stopped him in time. His officers had come up with a tiny figure of less than one percent nationally, and therefore there was no case for any major concern or action. I pointed out that since vast areas of the country had few if any of certain minorities, I was not surprised that statistically on a National level there wasn’t a problem, but it justified Cyril’s claim of 15% personation in some of his wards. You will make your own judgment as to whether those who did the research and drafted Douglas’ letter were either grossly inefficient, ignorant, or deliberately fudging the issue. However as a result, in the 1992 election, many polling stations, where deemed necessary, displayed notices making clear that such actions were unlawful.

  My most interesting overseas Parliamentary trips were to Israel, where Sally and I had been twice before in 1964 and 67. One group in 1986, led by Peter Thomas the past Secretary of State for Wales, were sent as a prelude to Shimon Peres their prime Minister coming to the UK, and Mrs T making an official visit to Israel. The group included Dr John Blackburn, Michael Brown, Edward Leigh and Anna McCurley. Ministers are naturally accustomed to meeting senior ministers of other countries in the course of their duties, so I and I’m sure the other backbenchers felt privileged to meet all the principle ministers, and leaders of the opposition, and hearing first hand particularly of the problems thrown up by their proportional electoral system. I felt confirmed in the view that whatever the short comings of our first past the post system, it at least produced a government that felt
able to act without being stymied by numerous tiny minority parties. The Speaker Mr Shlomo Hillel was very open about these problems, and pointed out that twenty seven different groups had fought the previous election and fifteen of these won representation in the Knesset. That is why it has for so long been almost impossible for a single Party to have the mandate and Parliamentary muscle to resolve the Palestinian/Israel issue which clearly the majority of Israelis pray for. What also became very clear, no tiny minority Party was going to agree to a change in the electoral system if the result would be their extinction.

  The tobacco lobby on its fruitless annual visit to the Chancellor

  Our discussions with Abba Eban clearly underlined and confirmed the esteem in which he was widely held in international circles. However some years later to the surprise of many outside Israel, Abba Eban disappeared from the scene, a victim of the absurd list system that allows Parties to list their candidates in order of the Party's preference, not the voting public's, and being low down on his party's list, he failed to be re-elected. Shimon Peres who came across as clearly a man genuinely seeking a fair and peaceful solution to a settlement with the Palestinians. However the government was a coalition, and he was shortly handing over the top role to Yitzhak Shamir who was less enamoured with the deal Israel had made with Egypt, and simply commented that they had given us peace, and we gave them Sinai !

  We toured the borders of the country, but the most impressive visit was to Massada, which prompted Peter Thomas to remark that he’d been to many places in the world, but none had moved him quite as much as Massada. Although the Dead Sea had shrunk a long way from the base of the redoubt, the slope the Romans had built to enable them to finally take the site could still be seen, and the water cisterns built into the rock were still there to demonstrate how the community had been able to survive for as long as they did.