by Paul Torday
‘Good point, Herbert,’ I said.
‘Three: the president of the Yemen is not part of this, nor is his government; this is a private initiative. Your office, and the boss, can get involved or not, as you wish. FCO doesn’t need to be. Either your office can decide to support this, or it can decide not to, depending on how things stack up when you take a closer look. But it could just look very good if the PM could be seen to be promoting something scientific, something sporting, something cultural, like this. And there’s a terrific story about how Western ideas and science can transform the harsh desert environment and the lives of the people who live there. I think you ought to run it past the boss.’
The more I thought, the more I liked it. It was win-win. ‘Herbert, thank you for this suggestion. I like it. I’ll take it to the boss, as you suggest.’ How I wish I’d hung up on him, when he first said the words ‘salmon fishing’.
Interrogator:
So your initial interest in the salmon project was for purely political reasons?
Peter Maxwell:
Hey, politics is what I do. I wasn’t paid to think about fish; I was paid to think about what would make the boss look good. So, anyway, that is how it started. I wrote to the PM and the PM got it, immediately. He didn’t ask questions. He just said, ‘Go for it, Peter. Nice work,’ or something like that, and then I had to run with it. The first bit of press exposure, we were a bit off balance. I mean, something came out in the Yemen Observer. How am I meant to anticipate that? Then the International Herald Tribune picked the story up, and from there it got into the UK broadsheets, then the tabloids. So we had to get into the act, keep control of events, make sure the story spun our way. You saw the interview on breakfast TV, didn’t you? Now I’m very tired. I don’t want to answer any more questions today.
Interrogator:
For the record, I am now switching off the tape.
10
Transcript of interview with the prime minister, the Rt Hon. Jay Vent MP, on BBC1 The Politics Show
Andrew Marr [in vision, facing camera]:
Today we’re going to consider the question of salmon fishing, which makes a refreshing change. More specifically, we are going to talk to Prime Minister Jay Vent about salmon fishing in the Yemen. Earlier this week I spoke to the prime minister about this at Number 10 Downing Street.
Studio link to 10 Downing Street. Shot of prime minister and Andrew Marr seated in armchairs opposite each other, a table with a bowl of roses between them.
Andrew Marr:
Prime Minister, isn’t the very thought of salmon fishing in the Yemen an idea from way out on the lunatic fringe?
Jay Vent:
You know, Andy, sometimes someone comes up with an idea that is improbable but truly, truly heroic. I think that’s what we’ve got here, with my old friend Sheikh Muhammad. He has a vision.
Andrew Marr:
A lot of people, perhaps not knowing enough about it, would describe it as more of a hallucination than a vision.
Jay Vent [turns to camera]:
Yes, Andy, maybe to some people it does sound a little crazy, but let’s not be afraid of thinking outside the box. My government has never stepped away from challenging new ideas, as you know. You know, Andy, if you’d been a reporter when the first ship was built from iron rather than from wood…
Andrew Marr [faces camera]:
Sometimes it feels like I have been doing this job rather a long time, Prime Minister.
Jay Vent:
Ha ha, Andy. I think you get my point, though. My point is, it probably sounded a little crazy when someone said, ‘I’m going to build my next ship out of iron and not out of wood.’ It probably sounded a little crazy when someone said, ‘I’m going to lay this cable across the Atlantic and send telephone messages along it.’ People laughed, Andy. But now the world has been changed for the better and all because those people had that heroic, extra bit of vision.
Andrew Marr:
Yes, Prime Minister, that’s very interesting, but those were great inventions that changed the lives of millions of people. Salmon fishing in the desert sounds more of a minority sport. Isn’t a great deal of money going to be spent for no particular good reason? Why is your government supporting such an apparently bizarre project?
Jay Vent:
Andy, I don’t think that’s the question you should be asking.
Andrew Marr:
[inaudible]
Jay Vent:
I think the question you should be asking is, what can we do to improve the lives of those troubled people who live in the Middle East -
Andrew Marr [interrupts]:
Well, perhaps, Prime Minister, but that was not the question that I just asked. The question I…
Jay Vent [interrupts]:
…and, you know, Andy, isn’t it just a little bit special that we’re sitting here talking about changing a Middle Eastern country, and the lives of its people, so much for the better [camera on prime minister] without talking about sending out British troops and helicopters and fighter aircraft. Yes, we’ve done that in the past, because they’ve asked us to, some of them, and so we’ve had to. But now it is different. This time, we’re going to send out fish.
Andrew Marr:
So, is exporting live salmon to the Yemen now official government policy?
Jay Vent:
No, no, Andy. Not everything I do or say is official government policy. You chaps in the media attribute all sorts of powers to me, but life isn’t really like that. Official government policy is ultimately the business of Parliament. No, I’m merely sharing with you my personal view that the Yemen salmon project is rather a special project that I feel deserves some sympathy and encouragement. That’s not the same thing as official government support, Andy.
Andrew Marr:
And why do you personally support this project, Prime Minister. What is it that especially appeals to you about salmon fishing in the Yemen when there are so many other political and humanitarian crises that demand your attention?
Jay Vent:
Andy, you’re right that there is an endless list of problems out there that need dealing with. And no government has devoted so much of its time to global issues of the kind that you mention than mine has. But what’s so special about salmon fishing in the Yemen? Isn’t this project a different way forward? Isn’t it a form of intervention that is so much kinder and gentler and somehow…more transforming? Water in the desert? Isn’t that a powerful symbol of…
Andrew Marr:
[inaudible]
Jay Vent:
…of a different sort of progress? Yemeni tribesmen waiting for the evening rise by the side of a wadi with fishing rods in their hands. Isn’t that an image we’d rather have in our mind’s eye than a tank at a crossroads somewhere in Fallujah? Salmon smokeries on the edge of the wadis. The introduction of a gentle, tolerant sport that unites us and our Arab brethren in a new and deep way. A path away from confrontation.
All this is going to be achieved with the help of UK scientists. And that’s another thing: we’re a world leader in this fisheries science business. Thanks to the policy of this government. If we can manage to introduce salmon into the Yemen, where else can we do it? Sudan? Palestine? Who knows what new export opportunities this will open up, and not just for the scientists, but for our world-class manufacturers of fishing tackle, fishing wear and salmon flies.
So, you see, Andy, maybe it’s a little crazy as you say. And maybe, just maybe, it might work.
Andrew Marr [turns to camera, prime minister out of shot]:
Thank you, Prime Minister.
11
Continuation of interview with Peter Maxwell
Interrogator:
Did that interview indicate official government support for the salmon project?
Peter Maxwell:
God, no. The boss was too clever to be pinned down like that. No, what he was trying to do was create a climate of approval for the project,
and the impression that he, personally, liked the idea. It went down extremely well, that cameo speech. It made the news that night and stayed top of the news for several days in one form or another.
I can’t remember the rest of the interview but I remember that bit because I wrote a lot of it the night before, sitting downstairs in the kitchen at Number 10, cracking a bottle of Australian Chardonnay with Jay. And I remember the letters we got for the next few weeks from all the fishing rod manufacturers and wader manufacturers. We could have kitted out half the Cabinet with the free samples we got. As a matter of fact, I think we did.
Jay turned the media round with that interview. We had spun the story our way. We got good leaders in the Daily Telegraph and The Times. We even got a faintly patronising but not entirely negative leader in the Guardian. Suddenly the stories about dead bodies in the Middle East were on pages four and five. The front pages were about fish, and even the review and magazine sections were all doing pieces on fishing, what a wonderful sport it was and what terrific old characters fishermen were. They even interviewed the sheikh’s fishing guy up in Scotland, Colin McPherson. I talked to him myself at one point. I’ll come back to that later. I never understood a word the man said when I met him, and I imagine the journalists didn’t either, and just made the interviews up.
The important thing I want to say here is that, suddenly, Jay started to believe his own press. He started to believe it was his idea, it always had been his idea, just as it said in the newspapers. I think he half believed, although he never came out loud and said it, that he’d gone up to Sheikh Muhammad ibn Zaidi at some Number 10 reception and cocktail party and said, ‘Muhammad, hey, have you ever thought about salmon fishing? In the Yemen?’ That happened a few times with some of the stunts I organised for Jay. He took them over, and they became his ideas, his initiatives. I didn’t mind. That was the game. Shape the story, then step back into the shadows.
Can I have another mug of tea? I’m thirsty. And some more of those biscuits?
The interview was interrupted. The witness became emotional after the consumption of custard creams and was incoherent. The interview resumed after a break of four hours.
Peter Maxwell:
It was decided at the highest level that I would stay with the project, make sure something happened and that we had a good understanding of who the players were and where they were coming from. At the right moment we would drag the story back into the headlines, get the photo opportunity for the PM, and see where we could take it next.
Nothing much happened for a bit. I asked for a briefing from the head of NCFE, a man called David Sugden. He came and gave me an hour-long PowerPoint presentation during a very busy day, and talked about timelines, and milestones and deliverables, but he didn’t actually seem to know anything about anything. So then I took him out of the loop and put myself in touch with the man who was actually doing the work, a man called Jones.
Interrogator:
Was that the first time you communicated directly with Dr Jones?
Peter Maxwell:
It was the first time we had met. I have to say I wasn’t very excited the first time I met him. He didn’t look like the sort of man who would tell many jokes. But Dr Jones made more sense than his boss. He struck me as a bit of a pedant to start with, and when he came to see me in Downing Street I gave him a hard time, just to let him know who was in charge. But after a while I realised he wasn’t so bad. It was just his manner, mixed with quite a lot of apprehension at finding himself in my office, at the very heart of power in the United Kingdom. He seemed bright enough. I think he was honest too, in a naive sort of way. Politically, he was just an innocent, of course.
After I had listened to him outlining the work NCFE had done on the project, which was mostly conceptual stuff, I interrupted him as he began to talk about dissolved oxygen levels and water stratification, and said, ‘Fred, is this going to work? Are future generations of Yemenis going to catch salmon in the wadis during the summer rains?’
He blinked and looked at me in surprise, then said, ‘I shouldn’t think so, no.’
I asked him, if that was his opinion, why we were doing all this.
He paused and thought for a moment and then he said, as far as I can remember, ‘Mr Maxwell, I’ve often asked myself that question over the last few weeks. I don’t really know the answer. I think there’s more than one answer, anyway.’
‘Try some of them on me,’ I suggested, tilting my chair back and putting my feet on the desk.
Dr Jones told me that, in the first place, while this project probably won’t succeed, it may not entirely fail either. We may achieve something, such as a short run of salmon up the wadi when it is in spate. That in itself would be so extraordinary as to justify all the effort we are putting into it-providing of course we don’t have to defend what we are doing in economic terms. And we don’t. Sheikh Muhammad is being liberal with his money. He questions nothing, he always responds to funding proposals and cost overruns by writing another cheque, and the project is now well outside original estimates.
Secondly, whatever happens, it will have moved forward the boundaries of science. We will understand many things we did not know before we started this project. Not just about fish, but about the adaptability of species to new environments. In that sense, we have already gained something.
Then, too, said Dr Jones, there is something visionary about Sheikh Muhammad. For him, this isn’t just about fishing. Perhaps, at one level, it isn’t about fishing at all, but about faith. ‘You’ve lost me there, Fred,’ I told him.
‘I mean,’ said Dr Jones, taking off his spectacles and in polishing them with a clean white handkerchief, ‘that what the sheikh wants to do is demonstrate that things can change, that there are no absolute impossibilities. In his mind it is a way of demonstrating that God can make anything happen if he wants to. The Yemen salmon project will be presented by the sheikh as a miracle of God, if it succeeds.’
‘And if it fails?’
‘Then it will show the weakness of man, and that the sheikh is a poor sinner not worthy of his God. He has told me that many times.’
There was a silence. I didn’t go for this religious stuff, but the boss might like it, and I scribbled some notes to myself to talk to him later. While I did this there was a silence, and I almost forgot Dr Jones was there. Then he startled me by asking, ‘Have you ever met Sheikh Muhammad, Mr Maxwell?’
I shook my head. ‘No, Fred, I have not. But I’m thinking that maybe I should now. Can you fix it that we go up to his Scottish place together, some time soon?’
‘I might be able to arrange that,’ said Dr Jones. ‘He returns to the UK tonight. I will try and speak to him in the morning, and let you know.’
‘Talk to my secretary on your way out and check my availability,’ I said.
Dr Jones stood up and said mildly, ‘Mr Maxwell, the sheikh is not a UK citizen. He is a very simple man. He will either want to see you or he will not. If he wants to see you, he will send his plane, and if you get on it, he will see you. If you do not, he will not bother any further with the matter.’
As he turned and left I said, ‘Thanks for your input, Fred,’ to his retreating back, but he left without any further words.
Interrogator:
So when did you next meet Dr Jones?
Peter Maxwell:
I’ll come to that. I’ve just remembered something else, something that happened right after Jones left my office.
I still can’t believe that was how it all started. I should never have allowed myself to become involved. As soon as Jones started talking about the sheikh and faith and all of that, I should have terminated the interview, closed the file and told the boss to drop it. After all, what did it amount to at that point? A little story to keep the papers happy, a photo opportunity with a difference? I blame myself, all the way. I should have stuck to our core agenda and not been distracted. Salmon fishing in the Yemen? What does that do for hos
pital waiting lists or late trains or gridlocked motorways? How many Yemenis are registered to vote in our party key constituencies? Those are the questions I should have been asking myself, if I’d been doing my job. But I didn’t. Instead I sat chewing the end of my biro and I daydreamed. I thought about quiet Dr Jones saying, ‘Perhaps, at one level, it isn’t about fishing at all, but about faith?’ What did he mean by that? What does faith really mean? I keep faith with my party and my boss. How does salmon fishing come into that? It was all rubbish. Faith is for the archbishop of Canterbury and his dwindling congregations. Faith is for the pope. Faith is for Christian Scientists. Faith is for the people stranded in the last century and the centuries before that. It doesn’t belong in the modern world. We are living in a secular age. I live at the heart of the secular world. We put our faith in facts, in numbers, in statistics and in targets. The presentation of these facts and statistics is our labour, and winning votes is our purpose. I am a guardian of our purity of purpose. We are the rational managers of a modern democracy, taking the optimum decisions to safeguard and enhance the lives of busy citizens who haven’t got the time to work things out for themselves.
I remember thinking there was a speech there. I took my biro out of my mouth and started to muse, thinking that later I would jot some notes down to run past the boss. And, as I mused, I had a waking dream.