by Tom Watson
Owen McKenna, Labour Member of Parliament for Warwick South, is standing in the Central Lobby with his researcher. Damn. Phil hears the throbbing music again. It just had to be Owen, didn’t it? Owen will take one look at him and know exactly how nightmarish the last fifteen minutes have been. And it will make his day. His week. His month.
Owen sees him and grins wolfishly then turns slowly back to his researcher. Philip has a sudden memory of Owen in the house in Lambeth, a can of Stella in his hand and seeing that same grin. They are both in suits now. They both have staff and homes and status and, compared to most people in this staggering, staggered country, power. Phil has stayed slim, Owen still looks like a brickie but he’s kept his hair, while Phil is afraid he is beginning to thin at the temples. Whatever. It’s the same grin, the look Owen got when he’d really managed to get one over on someone, his hungry delight in the fall of an enemy – and now it’s directed at Phil.
Owen’s researcher nods, writes something down on the legal pad held across her chest, asks a question. Phil wants to walk across the lobby, grab the pad and strike Owen across the face with it, send his owlish glasses flying onto the patterned tiles. How many punches could he get in before security reacted, the cameras and phones came on? How would the squeals of Owen’s researcher echo up the gothic stonework? How would it feel for once to wipe that self-satisfied vicious smirk off Owen’s face?
‘Mr Bickford? Minister?’
‘What?’ Phil turns round and finds himself looking into the face of a dark-haired woman he doesn’t know. He manages a tight smile. She has a visitor’s pass. She fingers it with neatly manicured nails.
‘Can I help you?’
The woman is with a group. Students, Phil guesses. He tries to breathe through the humiliation, the flush the fantasy of smashing Owen’s glasses off has given him. Two of the girls, probably the ambitious ones, wear boxy jackets. Mother Hen must have been taking them on a tour. Phil nods, keeping the smile going while he scans the perimeter to see who their guide is and recognises the researcher for the Member for Maidenhead, the constituency next to his own.
‘Good afternoon,’ Phil says. If they’ve been on the tour, they probably didn’t see his meltdown in the Chamber. That is some sort of blessing. A temporary one.
‘These are some of my best students doing the A-level politics course at Jude Levy College. Can we ask you just a quick question?’
Phil nods again. ‘Of course. I have to get back to my office, though … ’ What was his next appointment? Where was Ian? ‘So we’ll have to be quick.’
The teacher thanks him and points to one of the girls in a boxy jacket. Long dark hair, Indian parents probably. Eager look to her. She reminds Phil of his last researcher, now working in Conservative Central Office in Matthew Parker Street and looking for her own seat to run for. He waits. It will probably be something technical, designed to ingratiate and impress, but as the girl draws breath a taller boy, his hair long and curled on top, his T-shirt patterned with cartoon characters, gets in first.
‘What’s the point of all this?’ The boy waves his hand around, taking in all Westminster, the arches and mosaics, the statues and the security guards, the researchers fast-walking up the shallow steps, the TV screens showing the committees in progress, the BBC Parliament feed from the Chamber. ‘This Punch and Judy nonsense carrying on as usual while the world goes to hell?’
‘Jason!’ the teacher says sharply. Jason shrugs. Thirty seconds ago Phil was feeling the same way, but now his anger switches back and runs the opposite way. Phil’s been answering this question ever since he ran for his seat in 2012, offering the usual words, sincere but apologetic, acknowledging past failures and promising to do better, but now suddenly, today, who knew? He’s had enough.
‘Yes, sometimes I think it’s a complete waste of time,’ Phil says. Angry Boy’s eyes open wider and Keen Girl bites her lip. The teacher’s apology for her student’s rudeness stops in her throat.
‘I mean, democracy – we gave it a good go, but it is basically reality TV, isn’t it? Celebrity politicians who make used-car salesmen look trustworthy, advisors knifing each other in the back, journalists who don’t know or care about policy but just want to make politicians sweat under the studio lights and voters who are led up the garden path. You say parliament is Punch and Judy? Spend half an hour on Twitter and tell me you still support universal suffrage. What do you think?’ The boy gapes at him. Phil shrugs. ‘Maybe we should put every policy to the popular vote. Free beer to everyone and we put the PM in the stocks if the market drops two per cent?’
He waits. The boy says nothing. ‘No? Or maybe we could ask a bit more from the people. From the voters. Maybe you could actually think about who you were electing and why, rather than acting like it’s a game show where you vote for your favourite four-word slogan, or don’t vote at all and tell yourself politicians are all the same because you are too lazy to find out what the differences, the profound differences, are? Maybe if you want us to be better you should better yourself.’
The shock on Jason’s face acts on Phil like a drug. So this is what it is like to say what you mean! He remembers it now, like a reformed smoker taking a long, filthy drag.
‘I—’ Jason begins, but Phil cuts him off. This feels too good. His blood is up. He will, for once, say what he thinks.
‘Because this place matters. It is the mother of parliaments. You saw what happened in some countries – cities and states fighting each other over masks, authoritarians grabbing power. The roots of democracy run deeper here. Centuries deep. And they start here. Our system has emerged out of wars, rebellions, plagues and struggle. It adapts. And that culture of fierce debate and challenge, that stuff that looks like nonsense and Punch and Judy to you – that’s what makes us strong. We bend but we do not break because a system grown up over centuries might look eccentric but it is adaptable and it is resilient. You want efficiency and nice packaging? Go to the Apple Store. Where were your Silicon Valley disrupters when the virus came? Letting the usual lies spread along with COVID and tinkering with their apps. We were here. Risking our lives to do everything we could for the frontline workers, the terrified and the sick. And fighting to come up with the best solutions to impossible problems where there were no good answers. So don’t you sneer at this place, young man. Don’t you dare. And while we are at it, learn some manners. Young lady, I think you had a question?’
Phil turns from the boy, who is staring at him slack-jawed, to the girl in the jacket. She blinks.
‘Yes … I … I just wanted to ask, why did you want to be an MP in the first place?’
Phil smiles again and he means it this time.
‘I wanted to do something that mattered. And it does matter. If the last couple of years have proven anything, they proved that. We haven’t managed to save everyone, we haven’t managed to save every job or business but the people who work here come in to fight for their constituents every single day, give us the room to build, to put lives together again. Whatever side of the floor they are on. You want to make life better for ten people? Fine. Be a good person. You want to make life better for a million people? Get into politics.’
The teacher and her students offer slightly dazed ‘thank-yous’ and Phil heads towards the stairs up to his parliamentary office. His senior researcher, Ian Livingstone, is waiting for him.
‘What was that about?’
‘Students.’
They keep moving, taking the shallow stairs two at a time.
‘You seemed quite worked up. And one of them was filming you.’
Phil doesn’t answer. What had he said? Some stuff about democracy. A brief respite from the shitshow of his day. He sees the jeering faces on the opposite benches again, like cherubs floating in the air in front of him.
‘Did you see it?’
‘Yes. What the fuck happened?’ Phil doesn’t reply so Ian ploughs on. ‘And I wanted to warn you Toby Dale is waiting in your office. That vein in
his forehead is popping.’
Perfect. Of course Toby Dale is waiting for him. The current favourite special advisor shovelling crap in and out of Number 10. Must have sprinted to Phil’s office before he even got out of the Chamber, his lips puckered and head down, his hand-made shoes thrumming along the carpet like a wind-up toy in leather brogues.
He nods. ‘OK. Thank you for the heads-up.’ He pauses in the committee corridor and stares out of the window at the crumbling stonework of Cloister Court. He has to know. ‘Ian, can you find out why a man called Sabal Dewan was in the visitors’ gallery in the Chamber today? Do it quietly if you can.’
‘Of course, boss.’
Chapter 2
Owen McKenna watches as the students swarm round Philip. When Owen arrived here, first walked the corridors in the glory days at the turn of the century running messages between parliament and party headquarters in Millbank, the older Labour MPs had taken it in turn to share a worn-out shibboleth with him: ‘Remember, son, the opposition is in front of you – your enemy is behind you in your own party.’ Maybe. As a rule. But Philip Bickford is an exception. He is Owen’s enemy and that meltdown in the Chamber was bloody delicious.
Phil is listening to one of the students now, a lanky kid with a sod-you look about him, like the goths and playground anarchists Owen grew up with. Philip hadn’t needed to grow up. He’d been born on a rough Essex estate with the mind of a forty-year-old Tory junior minister. He’d fooled Owen for a while, but then finally the scales had fallen from Owen’s eyes and he’d recognised Phil as the arrogant, narrow-minded self-hating, traitorous …
Pam, his researcher, is waiting for an answer.
‘Sorry, Pam. That all sounds good.’ She has been briefing him about the social media grid for the week. She is good at it. A digital native, and a smart strategic thinker. Witty, too. He won’t be able to hang on to her for long.
‘Are you going back to Portcullis House now?’ she asks. ‘There are a few constituency emails which need your attention.’
There are always ‘a few’ constituency emails. Owen looks at his watch. Better to launch into the inbox when he’s had a chance to shake himself out of this bitter mood. God knows, you always had to make sure you were feeling emotionally robust before diving into the constituency work, but now? With half his people up to their necks in debt and scared with it? Walk fast. Breathe the air. Get back to the desk with the fizz and pop of oxygen in the blood.
‘Quick walk first,’ he says. ‘Did you remember to have lunch?’
He sounds like a dad.
He heads down St Stephen’s Hall and his phone rings. Christine.
‘Hey, Chris.’
‘Where are you?’ Christine has a good telephone voice. Low pitched, but clear. Those elocution lessons her mama made her take. Sounded good in the Chamber too. Not for the first time, Owen silently curses the voters of Newcastle South West for kicking his ex-fiancée out of office. She should be on the front bench by now. So should he.
‘St Stephen’s Hall, being looked down on by those weird statues.’
She laughs. ‘I like them. I found it very inspiring to tell every one of them to sod off on my way into the Chamber. Look, Owen, any word on the written question to the health department yet?’
Damn. He’d meant to ask Pam to chase that up, but enjoying watching Philip get shredded in the Chamber had distracted him.
‘No. I’ll get Pam on it.’
‘What about getting the Select Committee to report on data security?’
Another reason the emails kept piling up. Owen was glad to be part of the Select Committee which shadowed the work of the Department for Digital, Media, Culture and Sport, but its remit was mind-shatteringly wide.
‘I’ve raised it, Christine. But we’ve got other fish to fry and the chair would rather punt the data issues over to the health department.’
‘Of course he would.’ Christine sighs, and Owen stops, moves to the side to let another tour group pass. He finds himself staring up at one of the mosaics. Not his sort of thing. The artwork in his flat is mostly classic band posters and street art. Framed now, rather than stuck up with Blu Tack, because you have to start acting like a grown-up sometime. These weird Edwardian murals have always left him cold. He knows about them, though. He gave the tour a hundred times when he was working in Labour headquarters in his pre-MP days. This one shows Richard the Lionheart heading off on a crusade. A culture war. What sort of message is that? A man heading off on a fatal fool’s errand and leaving his country to shift for itself. Not Owen’s sort of hero. Maybe when they get round to rebuilding this gothic palace they should replace the murals with protest signs. BLACK LIVES MATTER, TAKE BACK CONTROL, bring a bit of the chaos and battle of Parliament Square into the bubble.
‘Owen, don’t you think it’s strange?’
For a moment he thinks she means the mural. He turns away from it, rubs the side of his nose, pushing up his glasses as he thinks. Six weeks since the Select Committee had poured cold water on the idea of an inquiry. Four weeks since he’d filled in the form and pressed submit. Most answers to parliamentary written questions come back in a fortnight. Sometimes you get a message saying the answer will be delayed because they need to collate complex data. But this time … silence. Owen keeps thinking. The minister gets the question and his civil servants draw up an answer, then if the minister approves of the answer he or she puts their name to it and back it comes. But if the minister doesn’t like the answer the civil servants have suggested, if it reveals something sensitive or politically damaging, back it goes for redrafting. The more dangerous the question, the longer the pause.
‘Could be.’
Her voice snaps. ‘Could be? Oh, give me a break! It’s been weeks. I’m telling you, Owen, there is something going on. They promised a formal consultation on the loosening of the data protection laws months ago. And now they aren’t even answering a simple question about when it might be?’
Data laws. Even the opposition members on the committee had shuddered at the idea. Important, of course, but people need to be fed and housed, the economy propped up before it collapses entirely. Not for the first time he finds himself about to ask if it is really important? Why does it matter?
‘I’ll chase it up, Chris.’
‘Fine. Don’t over-exert yourself.’
‘I’m doing it now.’ He taps out a WhatsApp message to Pam and it swooshes away. ‘Done.’
‘Thank you. Let’s see if anything happens before I see you tomorrow.’
That catches him out. ‘Tomorrow?’
‘We’re having lunch. It’s in your diary. How about the Strangers’ Dining Room?’
‘So a public affair, is it? What are you doing, Chris?’
‘What the idiot who replaced me in parliament should be doing – and you!’
Owen glances at his watch. His window to stretch his legs is closing.
‘Fine. Tomorrow. How are Rob and the kids?’
‘Fine. Phil is trending on Twitter, by the way.’
‘Yeah, he fucked up good and proper in the Chamber,’ Owen says with a certain relish.
‘No, not that. Something he said to a bunch of students in the lobby.’ She goes quiet and Owen can hear her listening to Phil’s voice. Weird. He was standing two yards away when it happened. Now Phil has ghosted his way into Christine’s home office in the Newcastle suburbs and Owen can hear the trace of him over her phone. ‘Hmm.’
It’s the noise she makes when someone has managed to impress her. Owen feels a wave of jealousy, then a backwash of guilt. She married someone else. She has a family. You had your chance, McKenna.
‘What’s the arsehole saying, then?’
She sighs. Owen hears a tap at the other end, imagines her with her afternoon tea in her hand, setting the mug onto the table top. Would he recognise the mug? Do you ditch all your old mugs when you break up? What’s the shelf life of a mug? Is twelve years unreasonable?
‘A spirited d
efence of British democracy. Twitter is lapping it up. See you tomorrow.’
She cuts the connection. Owen puts the phone away, feeling weirdly rejected, and he’s back in St Stephen’s Hall staring up at the bearded knights in chain mail off to right imagined wrongs in the Holy Land. Walk. He nods to another backbencher in the doorway to Westminster Hall and one of the Leader’s Office political advisors cruises by him without a flicker of recognition. Owen is pretty sure he helped get that arse hired. Now he’s got a decent tie and a serious expression and he thinks he’s saving the country. We’re all trying, fella.
He walks down the shallow stone steps to the landing overlooking Westminster Hall. A change of mood. Hits him every time. The Victorian gothic fantasy is replaced with the austere grandeur of the oldest part of the parliamentary estate. A vast space the length of a football field, its hammerbeam roof a masterpiece of fourteenth-century engineering. Guy Fawkes and Charles I were both sentenced to death here. It’s been a shopping arcade, a courtroom, a church, a concert hall, a feasting chamber. It is full of ghosts.
Owen sees one.
He stops in his tracks, rocks back slightly to let another group pass by him. He’s older, a little frail perhaps, but it is him. Sabal Dewan. Owen feels the years disappear, leaving him cold and afraid, suffering those first punches of guilt and horror.
Sabal looks up and sees him. Owen tries to smile, but Sabal just looks away. Should Owen go and speak to him? It’s been what, thirteen years? He can’t cower here behind a bunch of schoolkids. He wonders who the woman with the braids is, standing at Sabal’s side. She is wearing a claret sheath dress, high heels, dark raincoat. Go and ask if you’re interested, he says to himself. He takes a deep breath, rehearsing the questions in his head, then Sabal turns away; his narrow face is transformed by a wide smile, a warm smile. It triggers another memory, another punch in the stomach. A day in the shared house when Sabal came to have lunch with them in the garden. To meet Jay’s friends. Summer of 2008 when even the banking crisis was just a shadow on the horizon and all they could talk about was Obama’s nomination. Happy days. Sabal holds out his hands, palms up ready to embrace … who? No. No way.