by Chris Mullin
Just as the Horse Guards were about to move off, a pallid John Redwood scuttled across in front of them, narrowly avoiding being pounded to strawberry jam. The Queen stared grimly ahead as she passed, at the last minute acknowledging a knot of people in the shadow of Cromwell’s statue. And in the final carriage the unmistakable figure of Tommy McAvoy in top hat and tails, beaming from ear to ear. Apparently one of the whips (Graham Allen) is left at the Palace as a hostage against HM’s safe return and Tommy has to go and collect him. If Tommy were the hostage, there would be more than a few votes for leaving him in the royal dungeons.
Thursday, 7 December To Warren House, a Victorian mansion near Kingston upon Thames, for two days of bonding with colleagues. A damn nuisance since it means missing a day in the constituency. JP in benign mode. Gales of laughter coming from his table during dinner.
Friday, 8 December
And so to bonding. Each of the ministers of state gave short talks about their work. This was followed by presentations from senior officials on subjects such as ‘communication’ and ‘integration’. I kept a low profile. My only contribution was to complain about the quality of the draft speeches we are given to deliver, about which there was general agreement. JP at his most genial presided, casual dress, shirt open at the collar. It is at times like this one realises there is another JP besides the exhausted, driven, angry, oafish one so often on parade. This JP is amusing, considerate, on the ball. A pity the outside world doesn’t see more of him.
Tuesday, 12 December
Fifty-three today. Awoken by the phone – my beautiful daughters singing ‘Happy Birthday’.
To a hotel at Euston to address 150 councillors on the merits of recycling. The speech contained the usual line about £1.1 billion extra resources ‘for environmental, cultural and other services’ over the next three years. As with so many New Labour figures this one does not bear close scrutiny. Inquiries have already established that ‘other services’ includes local authority pensions which are likely to swallow a large part of the promised increase and that nothing is likely to be available in the first year. Before we set out I asked how much the increase amounted to in real terms. Answer: 5.4 per cent. In other words, less than 2 per cent a year, under half of which will be available for recycling. So far no one has rumbled this, but it can only be a question of time.
Wednesday, 13 December
This evening, a call came from Gus Macdonald’s office asking that I take his place tomorrow morning to assist with the ‘roll-out’ of the transport spending programme. Since this would have involved reneging on a delegation of Essex councillors who have already been put off once, I said no. (More important, it would also have meant cancelling the office Christmas lunch, a detail which I took care to conceal.) Whereupon a fascinating little power struggle broke out.
Three times Gus’s office rang back insisting that I go. Three times I refused. I even overheard someone in Gus’s office threatening Shayne that they would get JP to intervene, if I didn’t co-operate. Eventually Gus himself cornered me. For once, however, I stood firm. Then someone had the bright idea of sending Phil Woolas, Gus’s upwardly mobile Parliamentary Private Secretary. Sure enough Phil was only too glad to oblige. Gus looked mightily relieved. As I was leaving he whispered, with just a hint of menace, ‘Well, this has delayed your entry to the Cabinet by six months.’ Shayne remarked afterwards that the official from Gus’s office was impressed. Such defiance, by one so far down the pecking order as I, is unprecedented.
Thursday, 14 December
George W. Bush, an intellectually and morally deficient serial killer (he has spent years as Governor of Texas signing death warrants), is to be the next US President. Just what the human race needs.
Today I did something useful. I decided to alternate night flights so that the pain is shared more or less equally between the citizens of south-west London and those of the Royal Borough of Windsor. Until now, by a margin of four to one, they have descended over central London, which is by far the most heavily populated. I must not kid myself, however. It was only a question of going along with the official line. Anyone in my place (except perhaps the Member for Windsor) would have reached the same conclusion.
Tuesday, 19 December
Responded to an adjournment debate on the shortage of affordable housing in the south, which is beginning to cause serious problems.
Jane Griffiths, who represents part of Reading, said she had actually campaigned against new jobs coming to her constituency because of the housing shortage. The first time I have heard a Labour MP admit to not wanting jobs. Martin Salter, the other Reading Member, whispered afterwards, ‘I shall be going into the election with fewer nurses, teachers and policemen than we had when we were elected.’
These are problems not of poverty, but of prosperity. To some extent, of course, this is yet another of the bills coming in for the Thatcher Decade. If you flog off all the best public housing, encourage hospital trusts to sell off nurses’ homes and abolish the police rent allowance, you can hardly be surprised if public servants can’t afford to live among you any longer. We can get by on this argument for a while, but there will come a time in the not too distant future when the punters (especially those who voted most enthusiastically for Thatcher) will no longer buy it. There is another aspect of the problem which no one wants to talk about too loudly (although Fiona Mactaggart did touch on it): all the spare rental accommodation has been soaked up by asylum seekers.
Today’s Daily Mail reports the latest above-inflation increase in nurses’ pay as ‘another Labour snub’. Most nurses will be ‘only’ £8 a week better off. The more one reads of this sort of nonsense, the more one realises that this country is in the grip of a terrible sickness. Materially most people are better off than ever and yet they are continually being told that everything is getting worse. The complaining grows louder and longer by the day. There is a progressive collapse of confidence in all our institutions. What used to be luxuries are now inalienable rights. Yesterday I received a letter from a pensioner who has just received her £200 winter fuel allowance (replacing a Christmas bonus that was a mere £10 three years ago). She wasn’t writing to say thank you to that nice Gordon Brown. Instead she complained that an unmarried pensioner couple down the road had been treated as separate households and received £200 each. This caused her to conclude that she and her husband had somehow been cheated out of £200. What has caused this sickness? I am in no doubt that it began with our loathsome tabloids, although the virus has long since spread to most of the other media. But that’s not the whole story. Obsessive consumerism has resulted in less, rather than greater, happiness. And it has coincided – indeed caused – a steady deterioration in the quality of life. Pollution, traffic congestion, crime are at record levels. How will it end? Badly, I fear.
As for me, with each day that passes I yearn for a simple life. One where we take pleasure from our immediate surroundings. Produce only what we need. Eat what we grow. Travel slowly. And value friendship. An impossible dream?
Thursday, 21 December
Today I saved the taxpayer £1.5 million. Officials came to me with a plan for yet more research into the effect of aircraft noise on sleep.
‘What’s the point?’ I asked. ‘Whatever the conclusions, you are still going to tell me that nothing can be done about night flights.’ I refused to authorise any more research. They weren’t at all happy and no doubt as soon as I am out of the door, they will put it under the nose of whoever succeeds me. Nevertheless, I felt for once that I had done something useful.
Also, I finally managed to wring out of officials in the aviation division details of the number of airline employees who have passes to the Department. I obviously touched a raw nerve because I had to ask half a dozen times over a period of several weeks. The answer is that, between them, British Airways, Virgin and British Midland have ten passes and the charter airlines have another four. I’m not sure there is anything very wicked about it, bu
t the fact that merely asking the question proves so upsetting for officials makes me wonder.
Home on the 15.00. Ngoc and the children met me at Durham.
Saturday, 23 December Sunderland
Emma proclaimed confidently that Santa was going to bring her a robot dog, which was news to us. It emerged that Emma believes that Santa is a mind-reader. Ngoc dashed into town only to discover that the said robot dogs cost a ludicrous £35. Instead, she came back with a little plastic made-in-China version costing a mere £4.50. Hopefully the tiny monster will be satisfied.
* In Scotland the veteran Labour MP Dennis Canavan was excluded from the shortlist for his own seat in the Scottish Parliament. He stood as an Independent and ended up with the largest majority in the country. In Wales a disastrous attempt was made to exclude Rhodri Morgan from the leadership of the Welsh Assembly. In the London mayoral election Ken Livingstone was threatening to stand as an Independent.
* The former Chilean dictator was under house arrest following extradition requests from four countries seeking to try him for human rights abuses against their citizens, following the military coup in Chile in 1973. He was released on medical grounds.
* In April 2000 Tony Martin, a recluse, was convicted of manslaughter after shooting dead a teenage burglar: his case was taken up by the tabloids and he was released after three years.
* During the 1976 Labour Party conference, the then Chancellor, Denis Healey, who had been on his way to an IMF meeting in Manila, had to be diverted from Heathrow to Blackpool to plead with the conference not to oppose his plans for an IMF rescue package.
* Chief Executive, British Airports Authority, 1990–99.
CHAPTER THREE
2001
Monday, 1 January 2001
Brixton Road
I passed much of the day cutting my own accursed leylandii hedge with our new hedge trimmer. All went well, until the blade went through the cable, fortunately without fatal consequences.
Wednesday, 3 January
The Guardian Diary is running a ‘Turncoat of the Year’ poll designed to identify the Labour minister who has most betrayed his roots. I am listed, ‘more in sorrow than in anger’, as a 60–1 outsider on account of my role in the part-privatisation of air traffic control. Happily there are others (Peter Hain, Clare Short) who rate far shorter odds than I. In any case my presence on the list is based on two false propositions. One: that I am in charge of the air traffic control sale. Two: that I once opposed it.
Monday, 8 January
Keith Bradley has been made a privy counsellor. We had a laugh about it during the division. In the run-up to the ’87 election he and I featured in the Sun’s list of ‘Kinnock’s Top Ten Loony Tunes’. Several of those on the list are now ministers.
Tuesday, 9 January
All quiet at the Department. JP is holidaying on the Nile. Although, true to form, he has been ringing in every day to harass the underlings. Yesterday he was only narrowly dissuaded from coming back early to deal with some wholly imaginary crisis which he assumed that no one but himself was capable of handling. The truth is that everything goes remarkably smoothly when he’s away.
Our plans for air traffic control continue to attract an unremittingly hostile press. ‘A devastating mid-air collision in our overcrowded skies is now inevitable, warn Britain’s senior air traffic controllers,’ says a report in today’s Express. Ostensibly the story is about the huge explosion in low-cost air travel, which does indeed pose serious problems. Before long, however, it has turned into a diatribe against the sell-off. We are on a hiding to nothing. Sooner or later there is bound to be a disaster and, whatever the evidence, our critics will lay it at the door of the part-privatisation. We have taken a very big political risk. And for what? The money involved is peanuts. Once again the trail leads back to Gordon. Of course, if it all goes wrong Gordon will be nowhere to be seen.
Thursday, 11 January
Keswick
Today I am Minister for the Lake District. What better job has politics to offer? The sun is bright, the sky is blue. There is snow on the tops.
Just the day for a stroll in the hills. Shayne, two officials and I are picked up from our guest house after breakfast and whisked away to a former TB sanatorium on the foothills of Blencathra, with stunning views towards Helvellyn. From there we are taken to see examples of footpaths eroded by four-wheel drives and overuse by walkers, much-needed affordable housing and a cycle track through a spectacular gorge leading out of Keswick. I am treated royally. It is ‘Minister’ this and ‘Minister’ that. Photographers everywhere, flashing away. The ban on speedboats on Windermere has made me a hero with the Park Authority, although the acclaim is not universal. A mighty vested interest has been upset and there are still rumblings. Lunch at a hotel which has gardens leading down to Derwentwater. And all the while the sun shone. The traumas of air traffic control and the Homes Bill are but a distant memory. Being Under-Secretary of Nothing in Particular is not so terrible after all.
Saturday, 13 January
Sunderland
My annual Public Lending Right return – a paltry £107. The lowest ever. My books are gradually disappearing from public libraries. Soon they will be unobtainable and the waters will close for ever over my brief literary career.
Monday,15 January
To London in trepidation. This is going to be one of those weeks where I cling on by my fingertips. I spent the afternoon boning up on the four PQs I have been allocated for tomorrow – three on aviation, one on gypsies. All subjects within my remit, which makes a pleasant change. As ever, I live in terror of humiliation. Nick Raynsford, needless to say, knows it all inside out.
Also, this evening Gus and I were due to have our long-awaited audience with JP to discuss my suggestion that we make terminal five conditional on a ban on night flights. However, it was cancelled at the last minute on the advice of officials in the planning department who had even gone so far as to consult a QC. The whole place is in the grip of lawyers. The very mention of night flights or the proposed new terminal makes officials extremely jittery. Mentioning both in the same breath is enough to cause nervous breakdowns all round. A recent Appeal Court decision, questioning the right of ministers to be involved in planning decisions, has only made the situation more fraught. By evening another note had arrived countermanding the earlier one. By this time, of course, it was too late to reinstate our meeting so we have to start all over again.
Tuesday,16 January
Tea with Gwyneth Dunwoody who says that Gordon’s acolytes have been putting it about that the sale of air traffic control was all JP’s idea and nothing to do with Gordon, which is, of course, complete nonsense. All the same, it only confirms the general suspicion that, if it all goes pear-shaped, Gordon will be invisible.
Wednesday, 17 January
To Heathrow and then to West Drayton to visit the air traffic controllers. I spent 20 minutes in the control tower at Heathrow, which is between the two runways so, quite apart from their radar screens, the controllers have a bird’s eye view of what’s happening. The atmosphere seemed relaxed despite an interview on Today this morning with an anonymous controller who said she had recently resigned because she couldn’t cope with the stress caused by the huge increase in traffic and by staff shortages. She sounded plausible, rejecting an attempt by the interviewer to suggest that safety was compromised, but the implication was that privatisation would make it all worse. I have to say I didn’t recognise her description from what I saw, admittedly in the slack season. The safety regulator requires that no controller spends more than two hours at one time on a screen. In practice, however, no one spends more than 90 minutes and, at this time of the year, it can be as low as 45, which wouldn’t be possible if there were serious staff shortages. They earn between £50,000 and £60,000 a year and work about 180 days a year. The responsibility, of course, is awesome, but they don’t take their work home with them and the pensions are generous. It is hard not to feel tha
t what’s driving the opposition, from the union point of view, is that the new management might start questioning these comfortable arrangements.
I spent some time in the controllers’ rest room, without officials, and detected none of the unremitting hostility that the unions and the media allege. No one suggested safety was imperilled or that stress was a serious factor. The hunting vote. Predictably, another large majority for abolition. Ominously David Blunkett, who is likely to be the next Home Secretary, was among the handful who voted for the so-called middle way, which is just a cover for the status quo. He also voted for a complete ban. Typical of David. On the national executive committee during the battles of the eighties he had a habit of being out of the room during crucial votes. Also, once again, The Man contrived to be absent, though he left behind a message saying that he would have voted for a ban had he been present. What is he playing at? We’ve got to get this out of the way once and for all. There is nothing to be gained by this endless shilly-shallying. We only end up upsetting everyone.