by Chris Mullin
Tuesday, 2 October
Election fever mounts. It’s had the unfortunate effect of forcing the Tories to put on a display of unity at their conference this week when they might otherwise have been tearing lumps out of each other. Overnight the new merciful, compassionate, green Conservative party has disappeared. All the talk now is of tax cuts. George Osborne has announced that under a Tory government no one leaving an estate worth less than a million will have to pay inheritance tax, which the Tory press are claiming exempts nine million people. Utter nonsense, of course, since in reality only about 6 per cent of estates pay death duties. In Sunderland I doubt whether it is 1 per cent – and most of them vote Tory already. All the same, a ruthless, clever move which will play well in the Home Counties.
Thursday, 4 October
It’s becoming apparent that Gordon and the young master strategists have over-reached themselves. The Tories have had an unexpectedly good conference, their minds concentrated by the prospect of an election. Cameron turned in an impressive performance yesterday and by this evening there are reports that our lead in the polls is evaporating. The big question is can Gordon talk his way out of this folly without too much loss of face. He’s going to look pretty foolish if he backs down, but if he ploughs on he risks oblivion. Either way this episode has showed him up for the desiccated calculating machine that he is.
I spent the day trying, with frazzled nerves, to breathe life into the new Sunderland Central constituency’s somnambulant election machine, resenting every minute that I have to waste on this insane exercise.
Saturday, 6 October
There is to be no election, after all, Gordon announced this afternoon. With an entirely straight face he came up with some nonsense about how he wants to be judged on delivery rather than promise, as if an election was the last thing on his mind, when everyone knows he has thought of little else for months. He has done himself and the party real damage by encouraging this charade. So much for all this strong-man posturing. He looks weak and foolish. The Tories are resurgent; Cameron’s ratings have soared. None of this would have happened had Gordon and his playmates concentrated on governing rather than manipulating. This episode has, however, had the solitary benefit of smoking out the Tories on tax. Their promise on inheritance tax was the mother of all election bribes – worth a cool £283,000 to any family worth a million or more. It had a devastating impact in Middle England, even among those who would never have been eligible. The depressing thing is that it worked. If the bribe is large enough, Middle England can be bought.
Monday, 8 October
A somewhat chastened Gordon addressed the parliamentary party this evening. ‘If there is blame, I will take it,’ he said. As well he may, since everybody knows that none of the acolytes (Douglas Alexander, Ed Balls et al) arrayed glumly behind him would lift a finger without his say-so. He just about managed to defuse the anger, but he’s burned up a lot of credit in the process. At his joust with the media earlier in the day he asserted to general derision that the fall in our poll rating had not been a factor in his decision. Also, he’s still prattling on about change. ‘The country wants change,’ he told us this evening, as though he has played no part in government for the last decade. He also argued, brazenly, that the Tories had shot themselves in the foot over tax since their promises were unaffordable. Oddly, he even suggested that we could match the Ashcroft millions, hinting that he had some big donors up his sleeve, but surely we don’t want another arms race over funding. Look at the trouble we got into last time round. Instead of trying to outspend the Tories, we need to close the loophole in the law that enables Ashcroft to pump unlimited amounts of money into selected marginals between elections. Several people made this point afterwards, but Gordon didn’t seem to get it. The only overtly critical contribution came from Mike Connarty. ‘What have Gordon and the people around him learned about themselves?’ he asked. He went on, ‘No more spin. We’ve had ten years of it. Keep your spinners under control.’
Later, in the Tea Room, Alan Milburn remarked, ‘Take this with a pinch of salt since it comes from me: Gordon has no policies and no strategy. He had – much to my surprise – done well on character, but now he’s blown that too.’
A brief chat with Hilary Armstrong in the Members’ Lobby. She made the same point as Alastair Campbell the other day. ‘Gordon has the advantage of not having to contend with counter-briefing. There was hardly a day when Gordon’s people weren’t briefing against us. It’s amazing that Tony lasted as long as he did.’
Tony Wright, who passed by while I was waiting at the bus stop this evening, said, ‘It’s awful. He’s thrown away all that we gained over the summer. This could be a turning point.’
Monday, 15 October
Suddenly it’s open season on Gordon. No longer Gordon the Mighty, Gordon the Invincible, Gordon über alles. Cameron and his Tories, who two weeks ago the pundits had all but written off, are sweeping all before them. It is Gordon who now looks vulnerable. There are even tentative signs that some of the Blairistas, who until now have kept their mouths shut, are beginning to brief against him. Hard to believe that such a dramatic reversal of fortune can have been caused by failing to call an election which no one wanted anyway. A temporary blip or a shifting of the tectonic plates? Who can tell?
Oh yes, and Ming Campbell has been removed as leader of the Lib Dems. His demise was announced by Simon Hughes in a terse statement outside Cowley Street. Ming himself was nowhere to be seen. That’s two leaders they’ve disposed of in two years. What a ruthless bunch the Lib Dems are, for all that they like to cultivate a cuddly image. The good news is that a Lib Dem leadership election should take the pressure off us for a while.
Wednesday, 17 October
Lunch with the Cambodian Ambassador in preparation for Saturday’s trip.
Ann Clwyd had an audience with Gordon this afternoon to report on her most recent visit to Iraq last July. She’s supposed to be his Special Envoy – a carry-over from the Blair era – but, although Gordon hasn’t formally dispensed with her services, she does not have the degree of access she once enjoyed. Ann reported that Gordon appeared uninterested, asked no questions and seemed ill at ease throughout her 20 minutes with him. ‘I came away,’ she said, ‘with the impression that he isn’t going to last.’
This evening I went, alone, to the Apollo cinema in Lower Regent Street to see Atonement. On the bus home a sharp-suited Tory MP who I didn’t recognise leaned over and whispered, apropos of nothing, ‘Here’s the irony. He’s got the job he has wanted for ten years and he can’t do it.’
I don’t agree. I think Gordon, inadequate though he is in many respects, can do the job and will go the distance.
Sunday, 21 October
Le Royal Hotel, Phnom Penh
Thirty-four years since I first set foot here. Then the city was surrounded. At night it shook to its foundations as B-52s pounded the countryside. From here you could drive to the front line after breakfast and be back by the swimming pool by lunch. Hard though it is to credit, the American position then – as late as August 1973 – was that they were facing a Vietnamese invasion and that the Khmer Rouge, if they existed at all, were insignificant. It was here at the front desk that Jon Swain opened a hero-gram (‘Congratulations your eyewitness account of fighting on Highway Four . . .’) addressed to a British correspondent whose foreign desk seemed to be under the impression that he was in Phnom Penh when in fact, as we all knew, he was in Singapore or Bangkok rewriting agency copy.
We are here as guests of the Cambodian parliament. Seven of us: three Labour, three Tory and a pleasant Liberal Democrat woman from the Lords. Ann Clwyd is our leader. This is my fourth visit, which gives me a little edge over the others, but I must be careful not to appear a know-all. The protocol is totally OTT. We are being ferried about in a convoy of black Peugeots, one apiece, each driven by a white-liveried chauffeur and preceded by a motorcycle policeman with a low whining siren.
This afterno
on we were treated to a whistlestop tour of the city. After which we persuaded our hosts to drop us at the old Foreign Correspondents’ Club by the river. Later Peter Viggers, Andrew Robathan and I walked back to the hotel via the Phnom, the huge stupa from which the city takes its name. On the steps, half a dozen disabled beggars, mine victims by the look of them. I wanted to give them something, but none of us had any small change. When the others had gone I went back and put five dollars in the bowl of a man with no hands. When I got close I realised he was also blind in both eyes.
This evening a lavish welcome dinner. The woman sitting next to me, a member of the Politburo, said she had lost 30 out of 34 members of her family in The Great Terror. Although her place card identified her as ‘Mrs’ she was unmarried. ‘There were not enough men left in my generation,’ she said.
Monday, 22 October
A day spent racing around town in our ludicrous convoy, the ambassador’s black Range Rover bringing up the rear. Calls on the presidents of the Senate and the National Assembly, meetings with senators and assembly members, a visit to the death camp at Toul Sleng, with its haunting photographs of the doomed. Finally, out to the compound beyond the airport where, at huge expense, the special criminal court is preparing to try the handful of surviving Khmer Rouge leaders. In the evening, after dark, we took a cruise on the river. I sat on the roof chatting to Lin, our delightful little Khmer guide, while the others remained below decks. Dinner at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club, during the course of which there was a huge electric storm.
Tuesday, 23 October
Another day of calls. Forty minutes with the foreign minister, two hours with the prime minister, Hun Sen, who was long-winded but eloquent and charming. In the afternoon we began a round of the opposition parties. Gradually, a picture is emerging. This is a one-party state masquerading as a multi-party democracy to appease the donors on whom Cambodia remains heavily dependent. To be sure, the achievements are in many respects impressive, considering that they started from Year Zero. Phnom Penh is a city reborn, positively humming with life. But . . . everywhere there is talk of corruption and land-grabbing. Vast tracts – 100,000 hectares in one case – are being handed over to so-called ‘entrepreneurs’ in return (it is widely suspected) for donations to the ruling party; peasants are being dispossessed, forests cleared – a process made easier by the absence of land records; fortunes are being made by a handful of oligarchs with the right connections. Even fishing rights on the Tonle Sap are allegedly being auctioned, to the dismay of those who have fished it for generations. One other observation: although the state lacks funds to provide much in the way of education, health care or mine clearance, which are to a large extent left to foreigners, it does appear to have the resources for some lavish – and it must be said surprisingly tasteful – public buildings. One can’t help wondering if the donors are being taken for a ride.
This evening, a reception at the residence, a delightful old French mansion. Among the guests Ok Serai Sopheak, a former Funcinpec commander during the controversial coalition with the Khmer Rouge during the eighties. He described how it worked. The West supported the non-communist resistance and the Chinese bankrolled the Khmer Rouge. The Thais stole about 30 per cent of the foreign assistance that passed through their territory. Sopheak denied any knowledge of the rumoured SAS training in Thailand, saying that he sent his people to the Jungle Warfare School in Johore Bahru. The entire operation was supervised by an international contact group, membership of which included the Thais, Singapore, Malaysia, the UK, the Americans . . . Relations with the Khmer Rouge and the Thais were close (‘they had safe houses in Thailand . . . everything’). Was he nervous about being allied to the Khmer Rouge? ‘It was high politics. Even the Americans and Great Britain had voted for the Khmer Rouge at the UN.’
Wednesday, 24 October
A tour of the opposition parties. The royalists are in disarray and lack any kind of programme. The Sam Rainsy Party is said to be a one-man band – two if you count his formidable wife – and too uncompromising. Most impressive was the newly formed Human Rights Party, comprising refugees from the others. We are introduced among others to Pen Sovan, prime minister in the government installed by the Vietnamese when they cleared out the Khmer Rouge in 1979. After two years, he disappeared to Vietnam, where he was detained for ten years, much of that time in an underground prison. Why? ‘Because I opposed Vietnamese control of Cambodia.’ My goodness, what a tale he could tell. If only there were time to cross-examine him . . . He has written his memoirs, but unfortunately they are in Khmer.
Highlight of today’s itinerary, a tour of the royal palace, mercifully undamaged during The Great Terror. Stunning. On a par with the Forbidden City, though much smaller – and virtually unknown.
This evening, a lavish farewell banquet, including graceful traditional dancers and a voluptuous young woman singing ‘Sex Bomb’.
Thursday, 25 October
Le Royal Hotel, Phnom Penh
7 a.m.: seen from the balcony of my room on the second floor, a plump monkey, trailing a long tail, striding purposefully across the gravel forecourt in the direction of the dining room. A security guard, radioing for back-up, gives chase. Monkey accelerates and disappears leaving security man peering in vain into the undergrowth.
The Residence, Hanoi
A full moon, lanterns hanging from a franjipani tree. A light supper by the pool in the courtyard. ‘This is the country that has reduced poverty fastest in the world,’ says the ambassador. At current rates of growth (8 per cent) it will be middle income by 2015. An astonishing transformation. ‘After a terrible history,’ the ambassador goes on, ‘this is the happiest time anyone can remember.’
‘What about democracy?’ demands one of the Tories.
‘Vietnamese have a very low expectation of government,’ says the ambassador. ‘They just want the government to get off their back, which it is beginning to do.’
Back at the hotel, tension. A meeting with trade unionists has been scheduled for tomorrow and the Tories are refusing to go, despite Ann’s insistence that they must. The Tories are adamant. They aren’t going and that’s that.
Friday, 26 October
Hanoi
Ann has been taken ill so, on the basis of seniority, Peter Viggers has assumed the leadership of our little party. Potentially problematic since he is entirely out of his depth in this neck of the woods – indeed, one suspects, anywhere outside the Home Counties – but he was kind enough to allow me to make the speech at the lunch with members of the National Assembly. This morning’s engagements included a session with an impressive senior Assembly official who cheerfully fielded questions about the one-party state. ‘We may have only one party, but that does not mean we have only one opinion.’ Yes, the party would have to relax its grip on the media: ‘You cannot make decisions for 84 million people. They have to make their own.’ Who is more important, I asked, the prime minister or the general secretary of the party? The prime minister, he replied. Since when? ‘Since about the last seven or eight years.’ As we were going down the stairs, he remarked that the traffic in Hanoi was a bigger problem than the one-party state.
The meeting with the trade unions was a serious embarrassment. Robathan and Liddell Grainger (much to my relief) continued with their boycott, but Peter Viggers – having been elevated to the leadership – decided, as he put it, ‘to step up to the plate’. We were greeted by two intelligent women who were under the impression that we were seriously interested in the rights of workers in Vietnam, faced as they are by some of the world’s most ruthless employers. Instead, Sir Peter appeared to regard them as enemy aliens. Before they could utter a word, he took control of the meeting, treating them to a patronising, convoluted, nonsensical little homily about communism. ‘To what extent do you think you are qualified to impress democracy on Burma?’ he demanded. They looked bemused (and they were not alone). It hadn’t occurred to them that imposing democracy on Burma was any part of their
remit. Three times I had to remind him to wait for his remarks to be translated before moving on to his next point. The others did their best, but no one seemed capable of asking simple, relevant questions. I just wanted the ground to open up.
Later, a meeting with a junior foreign minister, who turned out to be the son of the former foreign minister, Nguyen Co Thach. An amusing episode at the end when we presented him with a glass bowl from the House of Commons souvenir shop. The box was opened revealing, in place of wrapping paper, a pair of Ian Liddell Grainger’s socks.
Saturday, 27 October
To Haiphong, a city which still retains some of the innocence that Hanoi once possessed. Here the bicycle is alive and well.
We visited a secondary school, where a group of confident, shiny-faced youngsters treated us to a little sketch about the difference between love and friendship.