by Chris Mullin
Wednesday, 21 September
To Victoria Tower Gardens to be interviewed for a Newsnight profile of David Cameron, one of the Tory leadership contenders. The questions were all about his role in the select committee drugs inquiry supporting the very modest proposals for focusing on harm reduction rather than simply prohibition. I declined to play, insisting that Cameron was a useful, sensible, constructive member of the team (which he was) and pointing out that, in any case, the Tories on the committee split three ways. In the end, having asked the same question in about five different ways, Michael Crick gave up.
Monday, 26 September
Labour Party Conference, Brighton
The usual mixture of seediness and Regency elegance. Big Issue sellers on every second corner. The media, having nothing better to do, are trying to organise a leadership crisis. Gordon’s speech is being pored over for evidence of treason. Tomorrow it will be The Man’s turn. It was the same last year and by my reckoning we’ve got at least another two years of this. It may be my imagination, but attendance this year seems thinner. In the public gallery curtains have been drawn to hide banks of empty seats. And no wonder. For much of the time there is not even a pretence of debate, just a succession of ministers bragging about New Labour triumphs. This afternoon Tessa Jowell presided over a great Olympic love-in. Apparently we are all to be provided with ‘a multi-media tool kit’ to help us enter into the spirit of the occasion. Ugh.
Tuesday, 27 September
Brighton
Didn’t go in for The Man’s speech. Instead I high-tailed back to my lodging, intending to watch the big event on TV. Unfortunately I nodded off, missing most of it. Judging by what I did hear, it was full of the usual guff – onward and upwards, modernise, be bold etc. If we were going to be really bold, we could dispense with Trident, but I suspect that’s one piece of modernisation we won’t be contemplating.
Earlier I came across Tony Benn holding court in the cafeteria. On fine form, denouncing New Labour and all its works at five fringe meetings a day. We had our picture taken together with Jack Jones, who is in his nineties. Later it was reported that Tony had collapsed and been rushed to hospital. His son Stephen, who I came across outside the Grand Hotel later this evening, said he seems completely recovered, although the hospital was keeping him in overnight for observation.
Wednesday, 28 September
The Lycee, Kennington (my London flat)
A PR catastrophe at Brighton. Walter Wolfgang, an old nuclear disarmer who has haunted Labour conferences for as long as I can remember, was forcibly evicted from the public gallery for heckling mildly during Jack’s big speech. Clips of two burly stewards frogmarching a frail 82-year-old out of the hall dominate tonight’s news bulletins. To cap it all, he turns out to be a refugee from Nazism. What greater gift for New Labour’s many enemies?
Thursday, 29 September
House of Commons
The papers are full of Walter Wolfgang. Pictures on just about every front page of a steward hoisting him from his seat by the scruff of the neck. ‘This is how Labour deals with dissent’ is the theme. Nonsense, of course, but the symbolism is irresistible. Everyone’s at it – from the Campaign Group to the Daily Mail. The top brass, including The Man himself, have been apologising all day, but too late. The damage is done.
Lunch on the terrace, where I came across David Davis, fresh from his leadership campaign launch. We chatted for about ten minutes. He’s utterly confident of victory, saying he had more support among MPs than all the other candidates combined.
The Evening Standard has been swabbing toilets in the Grand and the Metropole Hotels at Brighton and claims to have found widespread evidence of cocaine use, the implication being that this is yet another sign of New Labour decadence. Maybe, but given that those places are swarming with journalists and lobbyists – outnumbering politicians by about five to one – there are other possibilities. As for swabbing toilets, are there no depths that the Rothermere press will not plumb?
Friday, 30 September
Sunderland
All hell has broken lose. The Sun (‘after months of painstaking detective work’) has discovered the whereabouts of the so-called Lotto Rapist who, having served 18 years in prison, has been living in my constituency under police protection and an assumed name. The Home Office minister, Paul Goggins, tipped me off about him months ago, but until now the hacks couldn’t find him. Mass hysteria is being organised on the grounds that (a) the likes of him shouldn’t be allowed to win the lottery and (b) the neighbours have a ‘right to know’ his identity, presumably so his house could be torched and he lynched by a mob of shaven-headed Sun readers. Fiona Mactaggart, the prisons minister, rang this evening to say that she was looking at changing the law to allow victims of rapists who come into sudden riches to sue out of time. Officials are advising against, needless to say.
Sunday, 9 October
Silly David Blunkett has been set up again. This time by a posh estate agent whom he met in Annabel’s. Annabel’s for heaven’s sake. What on earth was he doing there in the first place? According to today’s papers, it has been a scam from the start. Someone in a position to know remarked to me two weeks ago that David’s detectives suspected it was a set-up, but that it wasn’t their job to save him from himself.
Monday, 10 October
Our first day back. Geoff Hoon paid tribute in the House to Robin Cook’s ‘far-reaching reforms’. I used that as my cue to query our disgraceful 80-day summer recess. People shuffled uncomfortably and there was bit of mumbling and I can see it’s not doing me any good with the Speaker (he looked around desperately for someone else to call, but there was no one so he had no choice). I am almost on my own on this – in Parliament. Outside, it’s a different story. The whole thing’s a disgrace. I intend to go on rubbing their noses in it.
Then to Committee Room 14 to hear The Man address the parliamentary party. Better than his conference speech. Brimming with energy and self-confidence; not a note in sight; still less any suggestion that he is contemplating retirement. His main point: the Tories are being forced to fight on our territory, we must pin them down on the inconsistency of their new position, i.e. wanting to invest in public services, but not wanting to pay for them. He also promised to get tough with the Lib Dems: ‘We must force them to decide what kind of a party they are. I intend to do that.’ A change of line here. Thus far his position has been that the Tories, not the Lib Dems, are our real enemy. ‘I know I’ve got back time to make up,’ he said, to some amusement.
Dave Clelland asked why the government was encouraging private medicine: ‘I’m all for choice, but we said we were going to make the NHS so efficient that the private sector will be irrelevant. Now we are encouraging it. Why?’ The Man gave no quarter: ‘It’s the only basis on which we are going to expand.’ He added, ‘We have expanded the public sector by 600,000 people, so when I hear some of our trade union colleagues say, “You are destroying the public sector”, I go, “Huh?”’
Tuesday, 11 October
A chat with Angela Eagle in the Tea Room. She says the apparatchiks are up to their old tricks again. She caught them opening the NEC ballot papers – or at least the outer envelope – two weeks before polls closed so they could be ‘verified’. The purpose, according to Angela, is to see who hasn’t voted and then to gently remind those who can be relied upon to toe the official line. It used to happen with Shadow Cabinet elections in the bad old days, until Alice Mahon became a teller and put a stop to it. Angela says she had to have a stand-up row with the General Secretary to put an end to this latest jiggery pokery. In the event she was elected by only a single vote and says she’s sure she wouldn’t have been had the ballots been ‘verified’.
Wednesday, 12 October
I had Question Nine to the PM today but only eight were reached. I was proposing to inquire why, if it is now so essential that the police be given three months to interrogate terrorist suspects, they only asked for 14 days la
st time around? The subject was raised, however, and The Man insisted that he found the case ‘absolutely compelling’. Just as he did with WMD, I thought.
Monday, 17 October
To Church House to hear the Archbishop of Cape Town propose that a group of ‘wise men’ be set up to monitor progress on the G8’s commitment to Africa. My heart sank. Yet another lot of African big-wigs having to be ferried Club Class back and forth across the continent courtesy of the G8 taxpayer, and met at airports by fleets of top of the range BMWs, all the while denouncing us for our shortcomings while remaining resolutely silent on their own.
Then to the meeting of the parliamentary party in Committee Room 14 to hear Patricia Hewitt being given a going-over for her department’s plans for shaking up Primary Care Trusts only three years after the last great upheaval. Needless to say, no one seems to have been consulted. Her plans were variously described as ‘Maoist’, ‘hugely destabilising’ and ‘drawn up on the back of an envelope’. No one had a good word to say. Patricia, in reply, was soothing and apologetic, but conceded little, insisting that there were far too many chief executives, finance officers etc. and scope for considerable savings. I dare say she’s right, but why is this necessary after only three years?
Tuesday, 18 October
Walked in from Kennington via Courtney Street. A gaggle of photographers outside Ken Clarke’s house, waiting for him to show his face. Later we heard that he had been eliminated in the first round of the Tory leadership election. From our point of view, a pity. From theirs, sensible. He would have split the party from top to bottom. It’s beginning to look as though David Cameron is going to come out on top, which could give us a problem in due course.
Wednesday, 19 October
The Library
Jean Corston remarked, ‘Cameron is going to make Gordon look old and wooden. We could lose.’
‘Who would you prefer?’
‘Hilary Benn.’
‘So would I. Spread the word.’
Dinner with Ruth Runciman, who wants me to join the board of the Prison Reform Trust. I am not sure I am liberal enough, given what goes on in Sunderland. After Ruth had gone, I rang Ngoc, who reported that last night criminal youths slashed every tyre on every car in the street.
Thursday, 20 October
The second round of the Tories’ leadership election. Cameron is now comfortably ahead. Have they recovered the will to win at last? Bruce Grocott, who I came across in the otherwise empty Tea Room this evening, was sanguine. ‘Being leader of the Opposition is the toughest job in politics. John Smith, who had been Shadow Chancellor for years before becoming leader, told me he was totally unprepared for the unrelenting demands of leadership. Cameron is completely untested. He’ll have to weather all sorts of little crises between now and the election. Such as whether or not to send his children to public school . . ..’ Bruce added ruefully, ‘It’s about time the tide turned against this cult of youth. If it’s possible to become leader of the Opposition after about three weeks on the front bench, then the rest of us have wasted the whole of our professional lives.’
Three wee problems with Bruce’s analysis: (1) leading the Tory party in opposition, with half the press on-side, is a mite less stressful than being Labour leader; (2) I see every sign that Cameron is up to it; (3) the Cameron offspring are very young and no decision will need to be taken about their schooling between now and the election.
Monday, 24 October
The Independent has published my piece saying that I shan’t be supporting the Terrorism Bill as long as it contains the 90-days-without-trial clause. It won’t do me any good but I am beyond caring.
Hilary Armstrong remarked, apropos my campaign to shorten the summer recess, ‘We all think you are mad.’ Never mind, I take comfort from the fact that outside the Westminster village an entirely different view prevails. Nick Soames said of the rise of Cameron, ‘It means, of course, that you won’t be able to have Brown. That’ll cause a huge row in the Labour Party. Can’t wait. Ho ho.’
This evening, dinner in a private room at Shepherds with President Museveni of Uganda. I had been due to sit next to him, but some unseen hand rearranged the place names so I ended up between Bob Blizzard and Bill Cash’s wife, Biddy. Museveni was in benign mode, performing his usual party tricks about the height of Ben Nevis, asserting that Uganda was a net donor to the West and that the war in the north would have been over long ago, if only the donors hadn’t tied his hand over military spending. There was no opportunity to challenge him about his proposed life presidency or the fact that a large part of his army appears to be made up of ghosts.
Tuesday, 25 October
To the PM’s room for a meeting with Home Secretary Charles Clarke about the Terrorism Bill. About 35 people attended. Charles was anxious to persuade us to support the Bill on second reading tomorrow and argue about the details later. Happily, I shall be en route to Tanzania by the time the vote is called so I shall be spared the dilemma. It seems clear Charles is up for a compromise over the 90 days, but his problem is that The Main Person is not. We’d probably be doing Charles a favour if we organised a nice big protest vote. He had read my article and inquired when I was coming back. ‘In time for report stage,’ I said with a big smile.
My literary agent, Pat Kavanagh, came in for dinner.
Wednesday, 26 October
A big turnout for the debate on the Terrorism Bill. A huge number of interventions, ranging from the sceptical to the downright hostile. No one except Bill Cash spoke in favour. Charles took it all in his stride, responding calmly and considerately. My, how he has changed from the thuggish Kinnock-minder of the 1980s. I was called at about five and made clear I wouldn’t be going along with 90 days under any circumstances. Then I made a dash for the airport and was airborne by 8pm.
As I was leaving, a call from my assistant, Graham March, to say that the Angolan family we have been trying to help have been taken away pending removal. They have two small children and face destitution unless I can find someone to help them. I instructed Graham to ring Tony McNulty’s office and ask him to hold fire until I get back next week, but I am not holding my breath.
Thursday, 3 November
Touched down from Dar es Salaam at about 5.30am feeling surprisingly chipper, having managed to sleep most of the way, courtesy of a couple of beers and a sleeping tablet. Yesterday, it seems, was eventful. Not only was Blunkett sacked (again), but the Terrorism Bill has imploded. Bob Marshall-Andrews’s attempt to amend the ‘glorification’ clause failed by just one vote (had I been there, it would have been a draw); better still, faced with an amendment by David Winnick (which also bears my name), Charles Clarke has had to withdraw the 90-days-detention clause and is to come back with a compromise next week. On top of all that, there has been an unseemly wrangle over the proposed ban on smoking in public places which John Reid has managed to water down even though he represents a Scottish constituency where a total ban on smoking in public buildings is about to be introduced. The general view seems to be that The Man is in trouble. His friends are melting away and his critics are growing bolder by the hour. ‘Blair’s power drains away’ is the headline across the front page of the Telegraph. For once it may not be wishful thinking.
Some extraordinary stories around the Blunkett departure. It seems he was called to Number 10 twice. After the first visit he emerged thumbs up and smiling, but within a few minutes he was called back and told he would have to go. What had in fact happened was that, after David’s first visit, The Man was presented with yet more evidence of David’s misdemeanours and realised that he couldn’t sustain the position when he faced Michael Howard at Questions later in the morning.
Home on the 19.00 with Alan Milburn. While we were on the train The Man rang Alan on his mobile, twice. He disappeared to the other end of the carriage and they talked for about 20 minutes. Fragments drifted back. ‘Don’t get too exasperated,’ I heard Alan say. During the second call there was a lot of laughter.
The Man, according to Alan, is in defiant mode. ‘If anyone thinks he’s going to let everything we’ve achieved unravel, they’d better think again. Monday’s parliamentary party meeting will be interesting.’
‘Tell him not to overdo it.’
‘I did.’
Ngoc met me at Durham. ‘Do you understand the government’s education plans? They must be mad. That Ruth Kelly talks in slogans.’
Also a note from Pat Kavanagh: ‘The next time I am in your company I will ask you to explain the government’s new education policy. If I understand them right, they seem to me utterly wrong-headed.’
Friday, 4 November
Sunderland
At tonight’s meeting of the management committee, much complaining about The Man’s plans for an education free-for-all. Councillor Pat Smith, who chairs the education committee, said, ‘Ten years ago I went to a conference in Newcastle where Theresa May told us to do all the things we are now about to do. I don’t know whether I’m Labour or Tory any more.’
Monday, 7 November
To a crowded meeting of the parliamentary party, to hear The Man tell us why it is absolutely vital that we all get behind his plan to detain suspected terrorists for up to 90 days. Far from seeking compromise, he seems to be raising the stakes, turning it into a mini vote of confidence. Yesterday he was on the telly accusing his critics of ‘woeful complacency’, even as Charles Clarke was talking compromise. It is beginning to look as if Charles has been leapt upon from a great height. A minister, who shall remain nameless, recounted how this morning his officials rang the Home Office to find out what the line was, only to be told, ‘We don’t know.’ Anyway, the situation soon clarified. It’s 90 days or bust. The Man was on sparkling, amazing form. I haven’t seen him so good since he talked us (or most of us) into invading Iraq. The mood was revivalist. Billy Graham couldn’t have done better. One after another people spoke up to say they had seen the light and were now more than ever convinced of the One True Path. Of the critics there was no sign. Apart from Paul Flynn, who said to loyalist groans that he thought The Man should go sooner rather than later. Paul apart, the mood was adulatory, the applause thunderous. Can it be that this man is so articulate, and we so gullible, that he can talk us into anything, however foolish? Oddly, his argument was almost entirely about wrong-footing the Tories. Silly me, I thought all this was to do with fighting terrorism.