by Chris Mullin
Thursday, 24 February
To Lancaster House to celebrate the final draft of the Commission for Africa report. All the African high commissioners and ambassadors were there, including my new friend from Zimbabwe, who shook my hand warmly despite our exchange the other day. Also, at the insistence of Number 10, a sprinkling of celebs, including Prunella Scales who played the Queen (to whom she bears a striking resemblance) so brilliantly in the Alan Bennett play about Anthony Blunt. Had Her Maj seen it? ‘No one actually told me she had, but some time later I attended a reception at the Palace where we all lined up to shake hands and, just as she was letting go of mine, she whispered, “I suppose you think you should be doing this?”’
Friday, 25 February
Caron rang to say that Jack has now pronounced on my submission about the British residents in Guantanamo. He doesn’t want to take it up formally, but is happy for Liz Symons to pursue their welfare with the Americans, a softening of his previous line. I have asked to see Liz before she goes in to bat.
Tuesday, 1 March
This evening on Channel Four, a riveting documentary alleging that the Americans have outsourced the use of torture. It described the existence of an Orwellian American outfit calling itself the Special Removals Unit which ghosts prisoners across the world, handing them over to torturers in Egypt and even, in at least one case, Syria. A former FBI man was interviewed who described a turf war in which the CIA simply snatched an FBI prisoner – of Libyan origin – and handed him over to torturers in Egypt, where he was persuaded to agree that there had been a link between Saddam and al-Qaida (a statement he recanted as soon as he was out of the hands of his tormentors). This seems to have been the basis for one of the key planks of Colin Powell’s notorious UN speech.
The brother (a British citizen of Iraqi origin) of one of the British residents held in Guantanamo described how they had been kidnapped in Gambia, apparently after the SIS had tipped off the Americans. He was released after several days, but his brother, who had retained his Iraqi citizenship, was duly ‘rendered’. Until they were rumbled the Special Removals Unit used a plane (Gulf Air N379P) which was registered by a company calling itself Premier Executive Transport which turned out to be a lawyer’s office in Arlington, Virginia – just down the road from CIA headquarters at Langley. As Sy Hersh says, ‘The boys are back.’ It’s as though they had never been away. No doubt the truth will out in ten years’ time when the present generation of insiders get around to writing their memoirs. There will be a new round of congressional hearings, a mea culpa or two, perhaps a Special Prosecutor appointed – and then they will do it all over again.
Wednesday, 2 March
A meeting with Liz Symons to discuss the British residents detained at Guantanamo. Her line is that she is willing to talk to the families and make representations about the welfare of the prisoners, but no more. She is understandably (given the Consular Department’s workload) reluctant to do anything which implies responsibility for the 2.6
million UK residents who are not our citizens. In any case, we had no locus; our American allies would tell us to get lost if we started taking up the cases of people who were not our citizens. When, eventually, I was allowed a word in edgeways, I said that I thought our position was morally indefensible. As regards the men picked up in Gambia, we appeared to have a locus when it came to putting them away, so why shouldn’t we have one when it came to getting them out? I mentioned last night’s programme, but the mention of Gilligan’s name only set Liz off again.
‘Never mind Gilligan,’ I said. ‘Look at the evidence. There were interviews with a Swedish policeman, a former FBI agent and one of the men picked up in Gambia … Some sort of shadow gulag exists and we appear to be going along with it. We are mixed up with some very bad people.’
She did have the grace to concede that my approach (proceeding on the basis of evidence) was a better one: ‘I’m behaving badly. Guantanamo is outrageous. It’s outside the law and violates all the norms. But I’m not going to say that in public.’ Adding sotto voce, ‘At least not while I’m a minister.’
Saturday, 5 March
Sunderland
Flicking through a copy of Piers Morgan’s diaries in Ottakar’s this afternoon I came across the following entry for Thursday, 7 January 1995:
Chris Mullin, one of the harder left Labour MPs, has had a go at Murdoch and tabloids generally in one of his regular attacks on the ‘gutter press’. I’ve had enough of him and wrote to Blair: ‘Dear Tony, idiots like Mullin shouting their mouths off about “loathsome tabloids” and my owner in such an offensive manner do nothing to help us forge the relationship between us and the Labour Party that you and I wish for. If he is like this before you get into power, what on earth can we expect afterwards?’
On Wednesday, 25 January, Morgan notes:
Blair … has replied to my complaint about the idiot Mullin: ‘Chris is one of Labour’s strongest campaigners and has unwavering tenacity in pursuing causes about which he feels strongly. I am as keen as you to forge good relations between the shadow cabinet and your newspaper, but it is the nature of politics that there will be some Labour backbenchers with different views on this issue to mine …’ Nice to know one occasionally gets under the wire, even if one doesn’t find out until ten years later. How very decent of The Man to stick up for me, too. He could so easily have quietly disowned me and no one would have been any the wiser. It wasn’t long after that that Morgan was ringing me up asking for articles for the Mirror about miscarriages of justice. Perhaps this exchange also helps to explain why I was approached by Donald Dewar, our then Chief Whip, on the eve of Murdoch’s endorsement of New Labour and asked to keep my head down.
Sunday, 6 March
What a mess we are in. Every day the news grows bleaker. On Friday Ruth Kelly was jeered by a conference of head teachers. A survey in the current issue of the GPs’ magazine, Pulse, suggests that only a tiny percentage of doctors are going to vote for us, compared to 30 per cent for the Tories, 29 per cent for the Lib Dems and 18 per cent who are undecided. If we can’t take the doctors and head teachers with us after all the public money we have lavished on their respective professions (much of which has found its way into their pockets) who can we count on?
Tuesday, 8 March
Michael Jay called in. He is our G8 ‘sherpa’, in charge of preparations for the G8 summit. He said the Americans are dragging their feet on both the key issues – global warming and Africa. ‘They keep saying, “Don’t think we owe you for your support in Iraq,” – although they clearly think they do.’
The debate on nuclear proliferation went off well enough. Just like old times, in fact. Good speeches from Jeremy Corbyn and Julian Lewis. I managed to get through the entire hour and a half without revealing that I remain a paid-up member of CND. Later I remarked on that to Peter Hain and he replied, ‘That makes two of us.’
Thursday, 10 March
Geoffrey Adams, Jack’s Private Secretary, was my first caller. ‘How is Jack getting on with Condi?’ I asked, assuming she is much harder to engage with than Colin Powell. On the contrary, replied Geoffrey, Condi is easier. ‘We had an excellent relationship with Powell, but we were never sure whether he would be able to deliver because he always had to go away and square the NSC and the White House, whereas Condi is inside the tent.’
To the House for what is expected to be an epic battle with the Lords over the Terrorism Bill.
6.45 p.m., Members’ Lobby
Karen Buck says that she has received a letter from a constituent which reads, approximately, as follows: ‘I am dying of lung cancer, but I intend to survive until May 5 so that I can crawl to the ballot box to vote you out.’ Not a rabid Tory, but a former Labour voter. The issue? Iraq, of course.
10 p.m., Tea Room
The last train to the north long gone. All tomorrow’s engagements wiped out. It looks as though we are here for the night.
A gloomy exchange with John Denham and Mik
e O’Brien. Both agree we are in deep trouble and that defeat is possible. Such pessimism was unthinkable three months ago. ‘The tectonic plates are shifting. We’re losing the will to fight,’ said Mike adding that he was having difficulty finding party members to distribute leaflets, let alone canvass. ‘What’s our strategy?’ asked John. ‘We’re drifting. We’ve become too managerial, witness the foolish attempt to reform local government pensions two months before a general election. Now we are in a mess over the Terrorism Bill, which has wiped everything else off the front page. No one seems to have a grip.’
08.30, Strangers’ Cafeteria
Breakfast with Tony Banks (I should have been attending the launch of the Africa Commission at the British Museum, but only The Man, Hilary Benn and Gordon have been allowed out).
I managed a few hours’ sleep, dozing under an overcoat, in the armchair in my office. Kate, the cleaner, put her head around the door at around seven, but I drifted off again and didn’t even hear Big Ben strike eight. Banksie and I, urgently in need of fresh air and exercise, have agreed to meet at the Members’ Entrance after the next round of divisions and go out for a walk.
09.30
Banksie and I take a stroll, in biting wind, over Westminster Bridge.
On the way we pass two policemen cradling machine pistols. ‘Ten years ago,’ says Tony, ‘we’d have been amazed to see policemen wandering the streets with those kind of weapons. Now we hardly bat an eyelid.’
Along the South Bank to Lambeth Palace, scooping up stray plastic bags and stuffing them in litter bins; loitering in St Mary’s churchyard to decipher inscriptions on the tombstones. Then back across Lambeth Bridge and through Victoria Tower gardens, pausing only to remove a beer can and a soft drink bottle impaled on spikes above the gate. ‘The good news,’ said Tony as we re-entered the Palace of Westminster through a gate at the peers’ end of the building, ‘is that, so far as Parliament is concerned, today is still Thursday so these bastards can’t claim their allowances for today.’
Monday, 21 March
Michael Williams called in. We discussed the impending election. I remarked that The Man seems to be becoming a serious liability. ‘Jack thinks that, too,’ said Mike.
Later, at a surprisingly (considering we were addressed by Gordon) thinly attended meeting of the parliamentary party, a sobering contribution from Dennis Skinner, who said that in recent weeks he had been to around 20 marginal seats trying to get party members to focus on the election, but all they wanted to talk about was Iraq and disunity at the top. He went on, ‘We are entering into a campaign in which there is not a single newspaper – not one – wholly on our side. There’s been nothing like it for 60 years.’ Dennis said that in 1970 we had started 12 per cent ahead in the polls, defending a majority of 97 seats, led by a man with a double first from Oxford and up against a party headed by a man who nobody rated – and we lost by 40 seats. He added that he was not in favour of a May election on the grounds that we needed to get further away from Iraq. ‘I am not as confident as I want to be or as some people seem to be – by God we’ve got some selling to do.’
Tuesday, 22 March
This evening, a party for Tony Benn’s 80th birthday. All his children, and numerous grandchildren, were there along with a clutch of glamorous young women, including the actress Saffron Burrows. As for the old man, he was, as ever, on sparkling form although he seems to be shrinking a little, as you do when you get old. Nothing much has changed, he’s still chasing around all over the country, stirring. Joshua said to me, ‘You ring at 7.30 a.m. to see how he is, only to find that he’s already gone out. You call again at midnight only to discover that he’s not yet home …’
Wednesday, 23 March
There is a big behind-the-scenes tussle going on over the International Criminal Court. The Americans, in another piece of shameless unilateralism, are refusing to settle for anything less than guarantees of immunity for their citizens and are threatening to veto any Security Council resolution referring the alleged perpetrators of the slaughter in Darfur to the ICC.
If they get their way they will wreck the ICC before it starts. Jack is being very robust, telling Condi Rice that on this issue America’s natural allies are among her most ardent opponents. For once we are standing up to the bullies. Fingers crossed that Number 10 doesn’t interfere.
Thursday, 24 March
I spent 45 minutes on the front bench listening to Jack responding to an urgent question from the Tories about the Attorney General’s advice on the war. It has emerged that he underwent a last-minute change of mind about the legality of it all and this has resulted in renewed demands that his advice be published. Jack handled it all masterfully but, as John Hutton sitting next to me whispered, ‘not our finest hour’.
M from Washington called in. He says that there were only ever nine or ten people in Washington who supported the war and that (with the exception of Dick Cheney) most of them are departing. John Bolton wanted to be Condi’s deputy, but she refused to have him so he’s been sent to the United Nations. The CIA chief, Porter Goss, M describes as ‘scarily incompetent’ and busy surrounding himself with other incompetents. Condi is ‘a cypher’ (I guess we all knew that). The various Washington agencies are all openly rowing with each other and becoming increasingly dysfunctional. The only senior apparatchik of whom M speaks well is, oddly enough, John Negroponte, who he describes as ‘sane, rational and non-ideological. He knows the situation in Iraq is bad and won’t go along with an attack on Iran.’
Later, a three-hour debate on Africa in Westminster Hall. As so often, I was presented with an undeliverable draft so I simply put it aside and spoke for 40 minutes from notes. It went surprisingly well. It does make such a difference when you know your subject.
Saturday, 25 March
To see Mum. She seemed remarkably bright and cheerful and we even went outside briefly in the sunshine.
Friday, 1 April
Sunderland
The Security Council has voted to refer Darfur to the International Criminal Court. At the last minute the Americans dropped their threat to veto and abstained, after Jack told them that, if it came to a vote, we would go with the French. Like all bullies, the Americans back down when confronted. A pity we don’t do it more often.
A triumph for Jack. Arguably, he’s saved the ICC.
Monday, 4 April
Ministerial lunch
Jack reported an assessment of our election prospects delivered to the Cabinet at the end of last week. In a nutshell, we are in trouble. Our private polling is showing that about 30 per cent of those who voted for us last time are unlikely to do so this time round. ‘Iraq, Trust and Tony are the issues.’ He added that Gordon was now in the driving seat and this was good news. One can see that Jack is already preparing for life after Tony. Indeed one suspects preparations have been underway for some time.
This evening, we ministers entertained the parliamentary private secretaries and our esteemed whip, Jim Murphy, to a farewell dinner in the Churchill Room. Douglas Alexander arrived late, hotfoot from a campaign meeting at Number 10, bearing the bad tidings that a poll in tomorrow’s FT puts us, for the first time in years, behind the Tories among those most certain to vote. Jack said that people were just getting tired of us. Tony had dominated British politics for so long that most people were under the impression that he’d been in power for eleven years, not eight. With every day that passes Jack is detaching himself from the New Labour bandwagon. As the wine flowed, we reminisced about old times. Someone pulled my leg about my supposedly Old Labour origins in the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (which I never have repented and never will). ‘On the contrary,’ I said, ‘I was New Labour ahead of my time. Safe seats for life was Old Labour. A contract renewable every four or five years is New Labour. My only offence was to be prematurely New Labour.’ Jack backed me up, saying he had been a supporter of CLPD, too.
Someone mentioned the deputy leadership election in ’81. I remarked th
at I had fallen out with Neil Kinnock over his decision to abstain.
‘I abstained, too,’ said Jack.
‘No you didn’t. You voted for Benn.’
‘Did I?’
‘Yes. What’s more you put £50 on him to win.’
‘How do you know?’
‘You rang me up and told me.’
‘You have a good memory.’
Indeed I do.
Tuesday, 5 April
The Dissolution was announced this morning, a police helicopter hovering as The Man gave his press conference outside Number 10.
Douglas Alexander and Jim Murphy, sitting just down from me on the front bench, spent Question Time drafting their election literature. ‘Do you think that was my last appearance at the Dispatch Box?’ whispered Denis MacShane as we gathered up our papers.
‘It could be the last for all of us,’ I replied.
This afternoon I treated myself to a tour of the revamped Treasury building, courtesy of Dawn Primarolo’s Private Secretary. The transformation is amazing. No longer the tired, dowdy, gloomy monstrosity that it once was but a light, airy 21st-century working environment. There are courtyards with trees, flower beds, flowing water and red and scarlet camellia. The big surprise, however, was Gordon’s office. He has forsaken the long oak-panelled boardroom overlooking King Charles Street, once home to successive Chancellors, for a pair of modest rooms on the far side of the building. His Private Secretary seemed reluctant when I asked for a peep and I soon realised why: it’s a complete tip. Paper everywhere. Stacked on seats, tables, the floor, everywhere. And in the inner sanctum, against the wall, three huge piles – two about four feet high and the other five feet. Gordon’s filing system. How does he ever find anything? How come his officials tolerate this chaos? Presumably he refuses to let them throw anything away. And in the midst of it all, evidence that Gordon is human after all: toys and a framed picture of his toddler son, John. Just wait until the youngster starts reorganising those piles of paper. Or perhaps he has already.