by Chris Mullin
Friday, 25 June
The Residence, Kigali
HM Ambassador, a fifty-something, chain-smoking (what is it about ambassadors in this part of the world?) woman. Friendly, competent, but oh, so noisy. She appears to survive on a diet of caffeine and nicotine and keeps up a continuous, fatuous running commentary. Every phone call a great drama. Impossible to think straight while she’s buzzing around. Eventually, one of my officials gently took her aside and said, ‘I think the Minister would like a little peace.’
‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘That’s why my husband divorced me.’
The Genocide Museum, Kigali
A picture of a shiny-faced little girl and underneath the following caption:
FRANCINE MURENGEZI INGABIRE, aged 12
Favourite sport: swimming
Favourite food: egg and chips
Favourite drink: milk and Fanta tropical
Best friend: her elder sister Claudette
Cause of death: hacked by machete.
Saturday, 26 June
Kigali
The Rwandans are the Vietnamese of Africa. Energetic, self-confident, resilient, able to fight wars in the teeth of impossible odds and with absolute confidence in the rightness of their cause. The countryside, too, reminds one of Vietnam. Every inch, even to the highest hilltops, cultivated; in contrast to the Congo, a vast, indolent, uncultivated wilderness. And unlike the Vietnamese, the Rwandans are not burdened by an impossible ideology. At first glance, Rwanda is a glimpse of what Africa might look like if it worked. And yet it cannot be so simple. One does not have to look back far into history to realise that beneath the tranquil surface lies a terrible darkness.
Monday, 28 June
Sunderland
A long queue of supplicants at the Pennywell surgery and then to London on an evening train, armed with my dictaphone, a file of letters and one of Ngoc’s excellent sandwiches. Among the mail, a round robin from a couple in Dulwich who claim to represent exactly that section of the middle class so assiduously wooed by New Labour. The covering letter says, ‘We are writing to other MPs because we have lost our own – Tessa Jowell. She is now just a rubber stamp with “Tony Blair” incised on the bottom.’ They begin:
We are writing to disabuse Labour supporters of any spin that the Labour Party is still viable if Blair stays … The present spin from the Blairist camp is that, given time, people like us will forget the war and things can go on as before. Forget that – because WE will never forget: we are not the sort. And no spin-crafted apology is going to affect us.
They conclude:
If you want to save the Labour Party (and it is as desperate as that) get rid of Blair and his cronies. In the last few days the electorate has given this very verdict. Do not evade it or go into denial. If you do not respond with the only rational action you can take, then the consequences are going to be obvious.
I am not sure about the analysis. The length and nature of the charge sheet enumerated elsewhere in the letter suggest that the authors may not be quite as typical of the middle classes as they would like us to believe, but I couldn’t resist a chuckle at the image of Tessa Jowell as a rubber stamp with ‘Tony Blair’ incised on her bottom.
Wednesday, 30 June
The Man has now formally asked George Bush for the return of the remaining four British prisoners – I have seen the letter – but for some reason he doesn’t want it publicised so we just have to sit tight and take the crap from people like Vanessa Redgrave.
Friday, 2 July
Bharat reports some complaining at the Permanent Secretary’s meeting this morning that Hilary Benn is doing all the media on Sudan (he was on Today again this morning). Actually, Today were after me, but I quietly passed it over to Hilary on the grounds (a) that having been there recently he is better qualified than I and (b) having worked until after midnight and being short of sleep, I was darned if I was going to get up at the crack of dawn. Fingers crossed that no one finds out that I gave it away. Far from being jealous, I am grateful to Hilary for taking it on. I will never make a good Whitehall warrior.
Sunday, 4 July
Awoke to the news that Peter Mandelson will be supporting Gordon Brown when the time comes. Do we need to know this? Does it matter? And does this shameless bit of spinning by any chance have something to do with the current vacancy for a European commissioner? Given that his appointment will involve a by-election that we are unlikely to win, I wouldn’t have thought his chances were high, but you never know. Stranger things have happened in the New Labour court. Anyway, Peter has apparently given an interview to Channel 5, to be broadcast later in the week, and ‘a friend’ (no prizes for guessing who) has helpfully tipped off the Observer. The man is a compulsive self-publicist.
Saturday, 10 July
Mum’s 84th birthday and the first without Dad. What is to become of her? Liz and Pat are firmly of the view that she should remain at the nursing home. Mum would like to try living at home, with a carer calling in a couple of times a day. Alternatively, she could come to live with us, but she resists that, too, on the grounds that she doesn’t want to be a burden and, however much I try to reassure her that it would be our pleasure, she won’t back down.
Monday, 12 July
‘I’LL BE PM 5 MORE YEARS – Blair’s Shock Blow For Brown.’ Yes, it’s another Sun exclusive. Trevor Kavanagh, no less. Exactly what the punters in their present surly mood don’t want to hear. Shades of Margaret Thatcher going on and on. Which New Labour master-strategist has dreamed up this latest piece of nonsense?
Tuesday, 13 July
Questions. Jack and Bill Rammell dominated. What a confident, competent fellow Bill is. A voracious appetite for work, always on the lookout for new territory to conquer, he can turn his hand to anything. As ever, the only question I was called upon to answer was about Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe, that’s all I ever get asked about. Of the nine or ten Question Times I have done since I came to the Foreign Office, all but one has involved answering on Zimbabwe. So obsessed are the Tories that when someone referred in passing to the genocide in Rwanda, Michael Ancram and Gary Streeter immediately started chanting, ‘What about Zimbabwe?’ As if what has happened in Zimbabwe – dreadful though it is – bears any comparison to the slaughter in Rwanda.
Wednesday, 14 July
To the chamber to watch The Man’s statement on the Butler Report.**
Another flawless, effortless performance. None of the tension that surrounded Hutton. Howard was seen off as easily as IDS used to be in the old days. The Tories just looked glum, hobbled by the fact that they were keener on the war than we were and so it’s a bit late to pretend they were duped into supporting it. Charles Kennedy, who at least had the merit of having opposed the entire enterprise, was boring, worthy and easily disposed of. None of which gets us round the awkward fact that we were entirely, albeit inadvertently, hoodwinked.
The war was never about weapons of mass destruction. It was about keeping in with the Americans, stupid. It pains me to say this. I like The Man and he is in most respects an outstanding leader. But he has made a catastrophic error and, if there is any justice in this world, he would go.
Thursday, 15 July
Sunderland
A minor crisis. Edward Clay, our estimable High Commissioner in Nairobi, has made a speech slating the Kenyan government for its failure to deal with corruption. Nothing wrong in principle, but he has gone a wee bit over the top:
… the practitioners now in government have an arrogance, greed and perhaps a desperate sense of panic to lead them to eat like gluttons. They may expect that we shall not see, or notice, or will forgive them a bit of gluttony because they profess to like Oxfam lunches. But they can hardly expect us not to care when their gluttony causes them to vomit all over our shoes …
And so on. Needless to say the Kenyans, or at least their government, are mightily upset (imagine the reaction here if an ambassador accredited to us sounded off in similar terms). Ap
parently Edward sent the office an advance copy of his speech, but no one thought to run it past the Minister. I did a conciliatory little interview on The World at One, taking care not to undermine him, but at the same time keeping the door open to the Kenyans. This evening there was a call from Number 10, asking for a note for The Man’s box by noon tomorrow. Bharat thinks I should ring the Kenyan Foreign Minister in an attempt to calm things down. I don’t. When in doubt, do nothing.
Friday, 16 July
A chat with Edward Clay, in Nairobi, who was duly grateful that I hadn’t disowned him. Apparently he’s getting lots of support from the Kenyan public. We agreed it wouldn’t be necessary for me to ring the Foreign Minister, at least for a few days. Give the message time to sink in.
We lost the Leicester South by-election and narrowly won Hodge Hill (thanks to the intervention of George Galloway’s party). The good news is that the Tories came nowhere.
Saturday, 17 July
When Dad died Ann Grant, our High Commissioner in South Africa, sent a note saying that she still thought of her late father every day ‘usually with affection’. And it’s true. I think of Dad every day too. Which is odd because we weren’t particularly close and I rarely thought of him when he was alive and well. Yesterday, when I inspected the garden, I thought: this is what Dad used to do when he came home from work. Even as I type this I can see him smiling down at me from the picture on the bedroom wall, holding Sarah by the High Force Waterfall when she was three. At least he lived long enough for her to remember.
Tuesday, 20 July
The Iraq debate. The Man, shamelessly brilliant. Howard, lacklustre. Charles Kennedy, surprisingly chipper, but then he’s on a roll at the moment. William Hague also made a brilliant speech. He’s so good that the Tories could do worse than make him leader again when they have done with Howard. At the very least, he will be foreign secretary in the next Tory government, assuming that there is one (which there will be). Robin Cook hit the nail on the head: our involvement in the war was never about Iraq, it was about keeping in with George Bush. Jack was (unusually and unwisely) absent for most of the debate to which he had to reply. Mike O’Brien whispered that he was tied up with something that involved Mandelson. The rumour is that Peter is to be our next European Commissioner.
Wednesday, 21 July
Brixton Road
Ngoc reports that Emma said something very touching this morning:
‘Mum, I haven’t had a kiss from Dad for three days. When he comes home tonight, can you ask him to kiss me, even if I am sleeping?’
Friday, July 23
Sunderland
Suddenly the political landscape is transformed. The Man is again riding high. The polls (despite recent disasters) all say that, faced with a choice between us and the Tories, we would win hands down. Incredibly, there is even a discussion in the media about whether Howard, after his poor showing on Tuesday is up to the job. No more talk of The Man’s imminent demise. ‘Four more years’ no longer seems bravado. Truly he walks on water. And in case anyone should doubt that, it was announced today that Peter Mandelson is, as expected, to be the new European Commissioner.
Sunday, 15 August
To Heybridge to see Mum. I arrived unannounced. She was sitting in the day-room, an elbow resting on the arm of the chair, a hand shading her eyes, an empty teacup at her feet. Absolutely nothing to do. This is her life now. And it all happened so quickly. This time last year life was as it had always been. She and Dad were at home, bumbling along together, endlessly squabbling but caring for each other in their way. A struggle, but they were getting by. Now Dad is gone and there is no one to look out for Mum. It would be alright if she was gaga, but she isn’t.
We drove into Maldon and sat by the river; the tide was out as it always seems to be at Maldon. Astonishing how little it has changed since we were children – the wooden kiosks, the little park, the mud. Mum chatted away happily and we moved slowly between kiosks – an ice cream here, a cup of tea there – but she is visibly deteriorating, partly no doubt as a result of the lack of anything useful to do. As ever we talked about old times. The same old stories about Eileen, Terence, great aunt Gabrielle and so on, but I don’t begrudge them. In fact, I rather enjoy Mum’s company. It is clear that Dad’s death has hit her harder than anyone expected (I had thought that in some respects it would be a liberation). She seems never to have realised how ill he was. She keeps asking, ‘Did you realise he was dying?’
Monday, 16 August
M called in, incredulous that The Man has allied the UK so firmly to a president who, as he puts it, is ‘by far the worst in my lifetime, surrounded by people who are, at best, mediocre (Condi Rice) and at worst nuts (Rumsfeld, Cheney). Colin Powell is the only decent one amongst them and he is giving up.’
Tuesday, 17 August
The news from the front is uniformly awful. In Sudan, catastrophe. In Burundi another huge massacre of Congolese refugees. In Zimbabwe, Mugabe on course for a great election victory. There is even talk (which I shall firmly resist) of ‘re-engaging’ with him afterwards or at least with his rotten party. And Côte d’Ivoire, one of the few west African countries that have not yet imploded, is on course to do so. My job is to put a positive gloss on all this, but it is getting increasingly difficult. Even the good guys have their dark side. In Uganda Museveni is busy turning himself into a president for life; in Ethiopia we are turning a blind eye to some very bad things; and the new regime in Kenya, of which we once had such high hopes, is again becoming mired in corruption. Are we all wasting our time? Should we bother? Of course we must. The alternatives are too awful to contemplate.
Wednesday, 18 August
Word reaches me that Bill Rammell, wearing his UN hat, is contemplating a visit to Sierra Leone. Do I object? As it happens I do. Sierra Leone is very firmly my territory. In any case I am due to visit soon and it does not require two ministerial visits. There would be calls on the President and all the other top brass and, before we know it, he would be popping up on the Today programme opining knowledgeably (he’s also talking of dropping in on Côte d’Ivoire) on matters which lie firmly within my sphere of influence. Bill is a capable, likeable colleague, but his problem is that he doesn’t have enough to do so he’s always having to invent activity. And the fact that he has the UN on his list of responsibility gives him, in theory at least, carte blanche to tour the world raiding other portfolios. I popped up to see him in his palatial suite above mine. Without actually saying no, I did my best to indicate that I wasn’t keen. We left it at that. If he does visit Sierra Leone, he will go after me and allow a decent interval to elapse before doing so. At least, I thought that’s what we had agreed. Even before I was back downstairs Bill’s slippery Private Secretary had been on the phone to Bharat discussing the possibility of a trip in October. I instructed Bharat to reply in writing that we had agreed no such thing. I will also enlist the aid of our Africa director, James Bevan. The time has come for a little Whitehall warriorism.
Thursday, 19 August
The Foreign Office
‘We’ll try and get you away early,’ said Bharat – as he often does on a Thursday. Fat chance. I’ve been here until ten or eleven at night all this week, trying to get the paperwork under control. It’s five weeks since I last set foot in Sunderland and the work is piling up at that end, too. To say nothing of the snails and the bindweed that have had free run of the garden since mid-July. And on Monday I am off to Uganda …
Wednesday, 25 August
The Residence, Kampala
A day touring refugee camps around the northern town of Lira. I am in my element. One day in the field is worth ten meetings with men in suits. Three times I was asked to make impromptu speeches. Once from the back of a pick-up truck to a crowd of several hundred, once to a group of paramount chiefs and once to 200 traumatised children who had recently escaped the clutches of Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army.
Scenes I will remember: (1) the early-morning vi
ew of the Nile from our little Cessna, a long ribbon of silver in a damp, grey-green savannah emerging from Lake Victoria; (2) the refugee camps as we came in to land at Lira, row after row of mud and thatch houses topped with blue or orange plastic sheeting; (3) Jacqueline, 11 years old with wide eyes and a shy smile, who has for more than two years been camped with her exhausted mother and four siblings in a dark, derelict starch factory on the outskirts of town, one of the lower tiers of Hell; (4) Evelyn, aged 13, whose lower jaw was shot away, unbearable to look at; (5) the sight of the High Commissioner’s daughter, a little blond nugget called Persephone, dancing on the terrace as we arrived back from Lira, oblivious to the stark realities of the world beyond our compound.
By 7 p.m., just as Jacqueline and her little family are bedding down in the ruins of the dark, dank starch factory, we have washed away the dust of Lira and are downing pre-dinner drinks on the terrace. How easily we Lords of the Universe commute between her world and ours.
Thursday, 2 September
Sunderland
How can we bring up our children to be optimists? Every day brings news of another atrocity. Last week two Russian passenger planes brought down by Chechen suicide bombers. Yesterday a dozen Nepalese cleaners (cleaners for goodness’ sake) decapitated by Jihadi barbarians in Iraq. Today comes news that a crowd of (apparently) Chechen gunmen have taken over a school in southern Russia; the hostages include several hundred children. Tonight’s television news shows crowds of distraught parents gathered outside, being restrained by soldiers. Goodness knows how this will end. Sieges in Russia have a way of ending badly.