Decline & Fall

by Chris Mullin

  Wednesday, 28 March

  Tonight we were required to march through the lobbies in support of casinos, the latest piece of New Labour foolishness. No one’s heart was in it. ‘I wouldn’t be all that upset if we lost,’ I remarked to a female colleague as we sat in the Aye Lobby. ‘I hope we do,’ she replied. Frank Field said mischievously, ‘Increasingly I find that the only way I can stick with the government is to avoid going into the chamber to listen to the minister.’

  In the event the government had its way with a much reduced majority and not a few absentees. The Lords, however, have thrown a spanner in the works and Tessa Jowell has gone away to ‘reflect’.

  Thursday, 29 March

  To lunch with a journalist from The Economist. Talk was mostly of the coming revolution. He thinks that Jack will be Chancellor. Gordon and his henchpersons have a distressing tendency to bully, he says. If you write something they don’t like, they stop speaking to you. If they accept an invitation to lunch, they are liable to turn up with a file of your recent writings, with passages of which they disapprove highlighted in green, and proceed to hector you as to where you have gone wrong.

  Monday, 2 April

  A row has broken out over the £5 billion a year that Gordon took – by removing tax credits on dividends – from the pension funds soon after we were elected, about which the Tories have been banging on ever since. The Treasury has been forced under the Freedom of Information Act (another of our liberal reforms comes back to bite us) to disclose the advice offered by officials at the time and although, like most official advice, it lists pros as well as cons, it seems on balance to have come down against. Opinions differ as to how significant it was (the dot-com collapse and contribution holidays taken by employers were many times more expensive). There is also the detail that the removal of tax credits was pioneered not by Gordon, but by Norman Lamont, although of course no one wants to know about any of that. To compound our difficulty Ed Balls has foolishly claimed, without the slightest evidence, that the move was supported by the CBI, which triggered indignant denials and only served to add fuel to the fire. All very damaging. The Tories are playing it for all it’s worth and will carry on doing so right up to election day. If Gordon wasn’t going to be our leader, we wouldn’t be hearing any of this.

  Tuesday, 3 April

  We are being bombarded with identically worded emails from nurses protesting at the staging of their 2.6 per cent pay award. A put-up job by the Royal College of Nursing, which is always at its bravest when taking on a Labour government. Who would guess that most of these same nurses have just enjoyed an average pay increase of – not, as they would have it, a mere 1.9 per cent, but 4.9 per cent, as a result of the upgrading from which many of them have benefited; or that we have increased the starting salary for a nurse from just over £12,000 in 1997 to nearly £20,000 today; or that there has been a large increase in the number of nurses since we came to power. Little or none of this is acknowledged; instead each advance is simply pocketed as they move seamlessly on to their next demand. And not just nurses; the doctors are at it, too. Increasingly, like the natives of Borneo when first encountered, I find myself shooting back when shot at. I’ve just had a row with a doctor in East Herrington and I have declined to address the North East Pensioners’ Convention, which is full of elderly militants who flatly decline to accept that anything has changed for the better since we were elected, even though the evidence is plain as a pikestaff. A high-risk strategy for someone in what is now a marginal seat, but I don’t see why we should waste time appeasing the unappeasable.

  Wednesday, 4 April

  To Athol Street, Hendon, to visit a Bangladeshi woman whose home has come under attack from a local bigot. The lock of the house into which she is about to move has been super-glued, paint has been poured all over the doorstep, along with a frying pan full of fat. All this is in addition to a good deal of verbal abuse and threats of more to come. The victim, unusually, is willing to give the police a statement. A Bangladeshi family over the road have had their windows broken several times and are too scared to even set foot outside their front door, coming and going through the rear entrance.

  I rang the police. They were already on the case. The perpetrator, a woman with a long record of misbehaviour, is in custody, cameras are about to be fitted and they are planning to take advantage of the perpetrator’s absence to collect more evidence with a view to throwing the book at her. I rang the local Environment Department to see if they can clear up the mess on the doorstep before the Easter paralysis sets in. A friendly, efficient-sounding woman promised to do her best.

  Thursday, 5 April

  A call from the police inspector in charge of the Athol Street case: the officer he sent round last night (with the man in charge of installing the cameras) is complaining of ‘racism’. Apparently two Bangladeshi youths, one of them the younger brother of the woman whose house was attacked, were making their mouths go to the effect that all police are racists etc. I rang the woman and said this was not a good idea. She affected not to know what I was on about. Anyway, the good news is that council workmen have removed the paint from her door and doorstep. She didn’t sound all that grateful.

  Arrived home this evening to find on the front doorstep a postcard urging me to vote Respect in the local elections. They are putting up a local Bangladeshi, a stooge who this time last year was purporting to be a Lib Dem.

  Good Friday, 6 April

  John Humphrys was at his hectoring worst on this morning’s Today programme. First, he harangued John Reid to the effect that crime has risen when, as Reid calmly pointed out, it has clearly gone down in most categories, with the notable exception of street crimes related to the theft of mobile phones (unsurprisingly, since hardly anyone possessed a mobile phone ten years ago). Then Humphrys, his every word reeking of Daily Mail outrage, turned his fire on a hapless admiral, asserting that the Iran hostage incident was really a national humiliation. The admiral, who clearly wasn’t used to being on trial for his life, responded with considerable restraint. If it were up to me, I’d have been tempted to order a keel-hauling.

  Thursday, 12 April

  In a several months old edition of something called the Parliamentary Monitor I came across the following: ‘When, perhaps quite soon now, the history of New Labour comes to be written one important theme will surely be this: how did a basically, if modestly, successful administration come to be regarded with such dislike?’

  A very good question and one I find myself increasingly pondering. The article, which is the work of our old friend Andrew Gilligan, goes on: ‘There have been no recessions, no riots, no three-day weeks, no devaluations, no massive spending cuts. Most people have prospered. Some public services have improved. Yet, as I write, Labour is polling at 29 per cent, a psephological sub-basement last explored under the leadership of Michael Foot.’

  Needless to say Gilligan acquits his media colleagues of responsibility for this remarkable state of affairs. Instead he nominates Iraq, spin and an ‘almost wilful failure to align expectations with reality. Endlessly talking of “transforming Britain” while all along planning a much more limited programme was bound to end in tears. The chronic overhype of the first term (£40 billion for the NHS, anyone?) means that even now when the government has real achievements to boast about, it is simply not believed.’ It is painful to admit that a chancer like Gilligan could be right, but I fear that, to a large extent, he is. He might have added to his little list of reasons for our downfall, New Labour’s love affair with rich men.

  Monday, 16 April

  To the House to see Des Browne fending off demands for his resignation over the unwise decision to permit the servicemen recently released by Iran to sell their stories to the media. He managed tolerably, helped by an appropriate display of humility.

  Tuesday, 17 April

  The Residence, Abuja

  Touched down about 4 a.m. A couple of hours’ light sleep, followed by breakfast with HE,
Richard Gozney and his wife, Diana. I am here to bear witness, on behalf of HMG, to this weekend’s presidential election. The omens are not auspicious. From all over Nigeria, reports of the mayhem and shameless skulduggery that accompanied last week’s regional elections. At least 50 deaths, ballot boxes hijacked, underage voting, polling stations opening late or not at all, ‘significant discrepancies’ between local results and those eventually announced. The Delta states are off limits to foreigners on the grounds that they are too dangerous – 150 kidnappings in the last year. To compound the problems a last-minute Supreme Court ruling has ordered the reinstatement on the ballot paper of the allegedly venal vice-president, which means that 60 million ballot papers are having to be reprinted and distributed in the space of two or three days. All of which poses a dilemma for the international community. Not to recognise the outcome would be a recipe for chaos in Africa’s most populous country; on the other hand, dare we recognise an outcome that is clearly fraudulent?

  This evening, a reception for the Queen’s birthday, briefly threatened by a storm; strong winds whipping up sand, bending trees, threatening to uproot the drinks tent in the garden. Servants rushed about clearing furniture from the house, in case the party had to be relocated indoors. Happily, however, the storm passed. Among the guests, Richard Dowden, a British journalist, who spent last weekend in Ekiti and said he didn’t see a vote cast all day, although he was shot at twice and witnessed thugs thumb-printing ballot papers. He also saw a mob attacking the home of an official of the ruling party and emerging with ten stuffed ballot boxes. ‘What upsets me,’ remarked the Canadian Ambassador, ‘is that it is so in-your-face.’

  Saturday, 21 April

  Kaduna

  Election day. A shambles. The ballot papers arrived late, lacked serial numbers and made no mention of the candidates’ names, only their party symbols. Richard Gozney and I drove around for four hours before we saw a vote being cast. Once the polls did open, however, most of those who wanted to – at least on our round – succeeded in casting their vote. This evening, after dark, we visited the collation centre for the north of the city to find a large, angry crowd and no sign of the presiding officer. The only light came from torches, which added to the air of menace. Three of the 42 ballot boxes had been stolen by unidentified hoodlums.

  Sunday, 22 April

  Kaduna

  To the headquarters of the city council in search of the absent presiding officer. She turns out to have been kidnapped, held overnight and then released, minus her results papers. Outside an angry mob was gathering, fearful that they were about to be cheated. The harassed official in charge, who had been up all night, promised to start the count after he had his breakfast, but no one believed him. Situation very tense. The last bout of intercommunal violence here left a thousand dead. In the event, the official was as good as his word. We returned to find him calmly seated at his desk in the council chamber, as district polling officers stepped forward one by one to report their results. Beside him, scrupulously noting the figures, the young woman who had been kidnapped. In our country she would have taken a month off, sought counselling and lodged a claim for compensation.

  Abuja

  Mid-afternoon. A meeting of ambassadors at the German residence to hear a report from the chief EU observer. Not encouraging. From all over the country, reports of ballots boxes stolen, stuffed or otherwise tampered with. Everywhere polling opened late; in some places not at all. Many states have declared improbably high victories for the ruling party. ‘Not credible’ was the EU verdict. The irony is that just about everyone believes that the best man has ‘won’.

  Monday, 23 April

  The Residence, Abuja

  Awoke this morning with nothing in the diary save a vague promise of breakfast with the national secretary of the ruling party, Ojo Maduekwe, who had clearly forgotten we were coming when Richard Gozney and I pulled up at his house just before eight. By lunchtime, however, we had been received by both President Obasanjo and President-Elect Yar’ Adua. That is how things happen in Nigeria. Nothing is predictable, but it usually comes right in the end.

  One phone call from Ojo and the meeting with Yar’ Adua was arranged. We were directed to a governor’s lodge, a vulgar mansion on a street of vulgar mansions, bade wait and in due course (without the slightest fanfare) Yar’ Adua appeared. A modest, soft-spoken man of saintly demeanour and fragile health. By what accident has a man of such transparent integrity triumphed in the cesspool of Nigerian politics? How can such a man survive? Does he have any concept of the mighty vested interests he will have to take on and defeat if he is to govern effectively? If it all goes wrong, his successor will be the inaptly named vice-president, Goodluck Johnson, whose democratic credentials are a mite less shiny.

  We then called on Nasir El-Rufai, a dynamic young minister who is likely to feature prominently in the new government. Also, one of a handful of people with a direct line to the president. No sooner had we indicated that we would like to see the president than he pulled out his state of the art mobile and tapped in a number. ‘Abdul. Is the president there? He’s in a meeting. Would you ask him to call me back?’

  Within minutes Obasanjo himself was on the line. ‘Mr President, I have Mr Mullin and the British High Commissioner with me. They would like to see you. Good, I’ll bring them round now.’

  With that we piled into the flag car and were whisked through the multiple rings of security, into the presidential compound in the shadow of Aso Rock, along cloisters crowded with courtiers, cameramen and supplicants, pausing only for El-Rufai to have his photo taken with the Nigerian national football team, straight into The Presence. Obasanjo was alone in his vast, domed office; the decor red and gold. Our main purpose was to warn him that he was in for a battering from the international community for the manner in which the election had been conducted and that he should not get too upset because it was richly deserved. Not that he needed our advice. He had already worked this out for himself. Contrition was the order of the day. He knew that the election had been over-rigged – at one point, he said, he had been shown a poll suggesting that the ruling party would win an utterly incredible 35 out of 36 states and had sent word to his henchmen to cool it (in the event they only took 29).

  For all his faults, one can’t help having a grudging respect for Obasanjo. He has been reared in a hard school. He may be ruthless, occasionally brutal, perhaps even a little corrupt, but at the end of the day it is he who has laid the basis for Nigeria to climb out of the deep, dark pit into which it has sunk. None of the technocrats would have lasted five minutes without his backing. Now he is about to hand over power to a hand-picked civilian who, if he survives, can be relied upon to carry on where Obasanjo left off. Only once before in Nigeria’s fraught post-colonial history has power passed to a civilian government and that, too, was Obasanjo’s doing. He may be an uncouth old rogue, but you can’t take that away from him.

  By early afternoon we were back at the residence, mission complete. I tapped out my report for The Man and spent half an hour reading in the garden. This evening there was a farewell dinner for a departing British military adviser and his wife. Among the guests, the general manager of the Abuja Hilton, who told a hilarious story of a recent visit from Gaddafi, who had arrived with 200 female bodyguards, and proceeded to hold court from a tent pitched in a ground-floor conference room. The bill – a cool $200,000 – was paid in cash by a moustachioed gangster in dark glasses.

  At dinner a gloomy French diplomat remarked, ‘I give Yar’ Adua six months.’

  Wednesday, 25 April

  The Lycee, Kennington

  Last night I dreamed that Mum was alive and home again. There she was in her red cardigan, sans walking frame. ‘I am so happy you are back,’ I said. She beamed back at me and was gone.

  Thursday, 26 April

  To Michael Meacher’s office in Portcullis House, where he produced a pile of signed statements by 24 colleagues promising to nominate him. His
purpose is to demonstrate to John McDonnell – who he reckons has no more than about 15 promises – that he, Michael, is the only one who stands a chance of reaching the magic threshold and that John should, therefore, withdraw in his favour. Needless to say John is having none of this. Instead he has organised a write-in by campaign groupies around the country urging Michael’s supporters to switch to him. So far I have received half a dozen emails and this afternoon in the Commons I was waylaid by a couple of union officials who are camped in the Central Lobby, bending the ear of anyone prepared to listen about the merits of a McDonnell candidacy. The truth is, of course, that neither of them is going to make it. Gordon is already reported to have accumulated over 200 promises.

  Sunday, 29 April

  St Bede’s Terrace, Sunderland

  Emma has suddenly got serious about her education. A reaction perhaps to doing badly in a recent maths test. I came down this morning to find her seated at the kitchen table with what she called ‘my schedule’ on which she had written out a programme – ‘maths’, ‘reading’, ‘bath’ and so on – to which she adhered for most of the day.