Standing Down

by Rosa Prince

  It was a day of extraordinary optimism and hope and change and a future.

  The call from Mr Blair inviting her to join the government, however, did not come for four long days:

  It was my daughter’s birthday, so she had a horrible birthday because I was on the phone all the time. He was never very chatty in these moments, he said: ‘I’d like you to do public health, and Alan [Milburn, the future Health Secretary] is going to do the NHS and I’d like you to work closely together, and remember you’re modernisers.’

  The other truly wonderful thing was working with Frank Dobson [the Health Secretary]. Dear Frank. Frank had a team of modernisers and we all absolutely adored him.

  In those days we were so passionate about what we were doing. It was an amazing time, actually.

  I remember the day I opened my first red [ministerial] box and looked inside. There was this great big submission, I think it was about antibiotic resistance. It was some incredibly technical public health issue. And I just looked at it and thought, ‘I have not the faintest idea what to do with this.’ But then you learn. I loved it.

  Dame Tessa spent two happy years at the Department of Health, during which time her proudest achievement was setting up the Sure Start early nurturing programme, before she moved to the Department for Education and Employment:

  Then came the 2001 election, another landslide. All the papers said I was going to go into the Cabinet but we got to five o’clock the day after election day and I hadn’t had a phone call.

  Did I want to go to the Cabinet? You bet, absolutely. Definitely.

  I thought by five o’clock: ‘This is not going to happen.’ But I thought: ‘Never mind, I’m going to go to the constituency and have a lovely evening with all my activists.’

  There we were in the garden of the Crown & Greyhound in Dulwich Village, and again it was a lovely sunny evening, and my phone went.

  My agent picked it up out of my bag and said, ‘Oh, it’s No. 10 switchboard.’ So with all my activists I answer my phone and … I got this message from one of the wonderful ladies on switch saying, ‘Um, Tessa, the Prime Minister wonders if you could come and see him. Could you be here in half an hour?’

  So I got in the car and drove up to No. 10, then I saw Tony, who by then was slightly glazed because he’d done so many appointments. He said: ‘I want you to go to DCMS [the Department for Culture, Media and Sport].’

  I said: ‘Lovely, thrilled.’

  Despite having little knowledge of her new brief, Dame Tessa threw herself into it, making it, she says, ‘a major economic department’.

  Then, just a year later, came the series of events that would change her life and bring joy to millions of her countrymen and women.

  She says:

  I’m going on holiday, one of my civil servants comes in and says: ‘Secretary of state, before you go on holiday, we just wondered if you could sign off a letter to the Prime Minister advising against a bid to host the Olympic Games.’

  I thought: ‘Well, that’s quite pathetic really.’ Especially since the Sydney Olympics had been such a success. It was just after we’d had a very successful Commonwealth Games.

  And so I said: ‘Bring me some more balanced advice.’ I came back from holiday and there was a campaign in the department to ‘talk her out of it’. I got the bit between my teeth … and we just went on a campaign of persuasion.

  [I] had this conversation with Tony when I’d more or less got it at ten to midnight [and I] went to see him because it was time to sign off and support my recommendation to Cabinet.

  We sat on the veranda at No. 10 outside the Cabinet Room. I thought I had thirty minutes but the Scots were coming in so I had seven minutes and he was distracted and said, ‘I think it’s very difficult and there’s so much else going on. I don’t think we can do this.’

  I said to him, ‘So what’s the answer to this question: if we are the fourth-largest economy in the world, we are a country that loves our sport, we think London is the greatest city in the world, but we don’t dare to host the games in London in 2012? How are we going to answer that question?’

  He looked at me long, hard and lilac [and] said, ‘I get your point. I’ll reflect overnight and I’ll call you in the morning.’

  And in the morning I got a call from his principal private secretary saying: ‘The Prime Minister’s reflected on your conversation and he’s prepared to accept your judgement.’

  Having persuaded a reluctant Prime Minister and Cabinet to go ahead with the bid, Dame Tessa established from the International Olympic Committee that London was in with a chance and in 2005 accompanied Mr Blair, David Beckham, the England football captain, and a group of local schoolchildren to Singapore where the vote would take place:

  We absolutely went for broke on the bid, we got David Beckham and I thought I’d died and gone to heaven because there I was having my picture taken with David Beckham with his arms round me, and all these young people from east London. And then the next day London was bombed.

  Coming the day after the excitement of Singapore, the 7/7 Tube and bus attacks on London, in which fifty-two died along with the four suicide bombers, was a shocking experience for the capital, and one that could have soured the public’s perception of the games.

  As well as ensuring that the Olympics remained on track, Dame Tessa took on responsibility for helping the families of the victims of 7/7, as she had of those killed on 9/11.

  She remains close to many of them and, as the tenth anniversary of the 7 July attacks approaches this summer, has been asked to deliver the memorial lecture – an honour she describes as ‘very touching’:

  I hardly know where to start with either 9/11 or 7/7. There are so many things that are important to make the pain of the loss in those circumstances even possible to endure, and one of them is to have a memorial, a place to go, which is why memorials are so important.

  Dame Tessa was, of course, in the Cabinet that led the country into war in Iraq in 2003.

  One of Mr Blair’s most unwavering supporters, she describes how he leaned on her during the difficult weeks when the country was implacably opposed to an invasion that the Prime Minister was just as determined would take place:

  It was tough and tense and I remember just before one of the key Cabinet meetings, I’d gone to India to conclude a trade agreement on film production. I’d arrived on Tuesday and I got a call saying, ‘The Prime Minister would really like you to come back and be in Cabinet,’ so I was there for under twenty-four hours.

  At times, Dame Tessa has been accused of being too slavish to Mr Blair – a charge she rejects. She dismisses her famous remark that she would throw herself under a bus for him as a joke. ‘I don’t like the term loyalist,’ she says. ‘Loyalty is strength not weakness. I have never been blindly or unthinkingly loyal but I have a very clear view about the relationship between leadership and solidarity when you’re running a government.’

  If 2005 was a year of highs and lows, 2006 would prove to be an unmitigated misery as Dame Tessa’s lawyer husband David Mills was caught up in a scandal involving the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

  Fearing for her career, Mr Mills insisted that they separate until the furore died down. They reconciled some years later, leading to allegations that they had never been apart.

  Despite the roughing up she had been through, Dame Tessa was never tempted to stand down, particularly given the by-now absorbing work on the Olympic Games, which proceeded on a cross-party basis as she found herself working with figures to her political left and right in the form of London mayors Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson, as well as Sebastian Coe, the Tory peer and former Olympic athlete, and other sports stars.

  She says:

  It’s very hard to do justice to the sense of loyalty and commitment and solidarity that there was in the team who were leading the Olympics, who came from all sorts of backgrounds but who then were united by this sense of vision of what we could do.

&
nbsp; For years it was like a secret. You couldn’t tell anyone else because if you told them they wouldn’t believe you. That was incredibly important to me.

  We all had this sense of 100 per cent commitment to what we were doing together, to each other, and what this was going to be like in practice. That was a really wonderful experience of working with world-class people in that way.

  When Mr Blair resigned in favour of Gordon Brown, Dame Tessa seriously considered stepping down herself, but was persuaded not to by the new Prime Minister. She was surprised, having never seen herself in the Brown camp, and did not particularly relish serving under him:

  It was generous of Gordon. When Tony stood down I might have said, ‘Now’s the time for me to go,’ and I sort of did think that in a way. But Gordon was very insistent that he wanted me to stay.

  I said I wanted to think about this and I rang Tony and said, ‘He wants me to do this.’

  Tony said, ‘I think if the Prime Minister asks you to do something, you have to do it.’ So I said yes.

  I was so focused on the Olympics and the apprenticeships and health and safety in the Olympic park and making sure we brought value to the local boroughs. It was an executive job writ large. And that was really where my focus was.

  I didn’t like the politics as much and I also had this great sense of sadness and in the early stages [I was] feeling quite angry with Gordon because Gordon was a brilliant Chancellor of the Exchequer but he just wasn’t temperamentally suited to being Prime Minister. Most of what went wrong in that time was because of Gordon’s frustration that he couldn’t do it.

  When Labour lost the 2010 general election, Dame Tessa’s association with the Olympics meant she had a softer landing into the ‘horror’ of opposition than most:

  I was in a very lucky position in the first two years in opposition because I was on the Olympic board and in a way the tables were turned because I had run the Olympics on a cross-party basis and with my counterparts now the secretary of state and minister, they did exactly the same.

  I was still involved in big decisions, so it was a gradual let-down to the horror of opposition.

  I think actually for all of us who were lucky enough to be in government, this has been a very hard five years. There’s not a single day you wouldn’t trade for a day in government.

  After the long years of hard work, she puts the games’ opening ceremony as the high point of her political career:

  Afterwards, at about three in the morning … we were all just reading each other all the texts we had had, and then staggering back to the village where I was a deputy mayor in heels that were far too high. That was an extraordinary moment, actually.

  But you see, it wasn’t just one night. Because we can be like that as a city. We discover something of the soul, the personality, of London.

  It didn’t happen and then never happen again. That is all the time how you capture the potential of London.

  Which brings her to her decision to stand as a candidate to represent Labour at the 2016 London mayoral election…

  Having resigned from the shadow Cabinet two days after the Olympics in order to allow Labour’s leader Ed Miliband to bed in a younger team, she decided the following year it was time to step down from Parliament as well.

  But, within three months, that niggling sense of the need to help people, to serve, started up again.

  She is currently the front runner for the job and as a precursor to her own bid is playing a leading role in campaigning for the party in the capital.

  Despite having important and interesting matters on the horizon, Dame Tessa has been surprised at how reluctant she is to leave the Commons, however:

  One of the many things I’ve loved about this place has been the rhythm of the week. You can arrive at any time of the week and almost know what day it is.

  To have been here for twenty-three years is a privilege beyond anything I imagined would happen to me when I came back to London from Aberdeen. I loved being a Member of Parliament, loved it.

  ***

  Dame Tessa Jowell: CV

  Born in London; raised in London and Aberdeen; attended the University of Edinburgh and Goldsmiths College, London; became a psychiatric social worker and head of the charity Mind.

  1978: Unsuccessfully fights Ilford North at by-election, losing Labour seat to Conservatives

  1979: Unsuccessfully fights Ilford North at general election

  1992: Elected MP for Dulwich

  1994: Becomes shadow Health Minister

  1997: Becomes Health Minister

  1999: Becomes Employment Minister

  2001: Re-elected as MP for Dulwich & West Norwood; becomes Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

  2002: Proposes London bid for 2012 Olympic Games

  2005: London awarded Olympic Games in Singapore; leads response to help victims of 7/7 terror attacks, which happened the next day

  2006: Separates from lawyer husband David Mills after he is caught up in a scandal involving Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi

  2007: Becomes Cabinet Office minister with responsibility for the Olympics

  2010: Becomes shadow Olympics Minister

  2012: Made a Dame of the British Empire; becomes deputy mayor of the Olympic Village; returns to back benches; confirms reconciliation with her husband

  2013: Announces she will stand down at 2015 general election

  2014: Announces she will run to be Labour’s candidate for Mayor of London in 2016

  Dame Tessa Jowell is now married to second husband David Mills and has a daughter, Jess, thirty-four, and a son, Matthew, thirty-one.

  IAN SWALES

  Ian Swales, sixty-one, was Liberal Democrat MP for Redcar (2010–15).

  ‘The place is gradually being taken over by career politicians, most of whom went to just two universities, and they dominate all three main parties.’

  ***

  How did you end up in Parliament?

  I said to my wife with a few weeks to go: ‘You don’t really want me to get in, do you?’

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘Why are you doing all this work then?’

  ‘Well, because it’s a game, isn’t it.’

  My family are big on games. It was a game we played and it was a game we wanted to win. I heard subsequently that she talked to my oldest son and they decided I should lose by 2,000.

  Actually that was the plan, to really carve into the margin, make our seat a marginal then hand over to somebody younger. We really, really worked hard – and won by 5,000. It was the biggest swing between the main parties since the Second World War in a general election. Remarkable result, really. And that’s how I ended up here.

  How did you feel on first becoming an MP?

  I think Parliament’s more individualistic than I expected. There’s less teamwork of the type you would expect to see in business, for example, which is where most of my background is.

  I always say, ‘No, I don’t have a future here.’ I’m the wrong gender, the wrong sexuality, the wrong colour, the wrong age. That’s a joke. It’s just a comment about the political correctness really. You can see by some of these Cabinet appointments. Women still talk about glass ceilings – it’s clearly the opposite.

  Best of times?

  In Westminster, some of the votes we have had to do. The Syria vote was one where I agonised most. I was one of those who rebelled. It would have only taken seven people to have voted differently and we would have been in Syria … [The] Middle East [is] so difficult, but I still think that was the right decision and I think most observers think it was the right decision.

  And then of course the constituency work, getting the steelworks back running is an obvious highlight.

  Worst of times?

  A personal low would be when I got up to speak [at PMQs, and] because I’m a Lib Dem, got howled down by Labour.

  The Speaker told me to sit down while he got order. Then when I got up again, I got
through a sentence, they were howling, so I repeated it and he told me to shut up and sit down. I felt actually not that bad in myself, I just felt it was such a bad reflection on Parliament.

  Why are you leaving?

  There are two types of MP: there are those that retire at the election they turn pension age, like me; and there are those that stay here until forever, and I’m one of the former. It was never my intention to take on a full-time, full-on job again at this stage.

  Will you feel a pang on 7 May – and what are you going to do next?

  I am at an age where I’m retiring. If you lose your seat in your forties I can understand why you probably feel [a pang]. But I have already got five grandkids, I’ve got plenty to do. I’m not going to miss it in an ‘I need a job’ sense. I’ve got lots of holidays planned. I already know I’m going to be spending all of November in Australia.

  What are your thoughts for future MPs?

  To new MPs I would say: ‘Don’t forget who elected you.’ You do see some who get seduced by the Westminster bubble.

  ***

  Ian Swales: the full story

  Mr Swales was a happily married family man living in Redcar and working for the chemical company ICI when he became ‘seduced’ by the group known as the ‘Gang of Four’ who formed the SDP in 1981.

  He joined the party and soon became happily involved in activism, as much on the social side as anything else, before life moved on and his career took him to Brussels.

  He says:

  I had voted Liberal before then, probably on the basis of a ‘neither of the other two’ thing, whereas joining the SDP was a positive decision because I liked what they were saying.