Decline & Fall

by Chris Mullin

  Tuesday, 24 March

  To an upper committee room for a presentation by Greg Cook, the party’s pollster. Our overall position is dire, but there are small reasons for cheer: despite the best efforts of the Tories and their friends in the media, an impressive 82 per cent of the population believe that the origins of the recession are global rather than local; and the punters, by a margin of nearly three to one, stubbornly persist in the belief that the bankers rather than Gordon are primarily to blame.

  Wednesday, 25 March

  Gordon is en route to the Americas to sell his call for a ‘global fiscal stimulus’ at the G20 summit next month. Unfortunately his clarion call has been somewhat undermined by Bank of England governor Mervyn King’s statement yesterday that we cannot afford any more such grand gestures. Music to the ears of the Tories, who made much of it at Questions today. In Gordon’s absence, it was left to Harriet to hold the line, which she did with some success, battering Hague with his party’s pledge to raise the inheritance tax threshold to a million, thereby benefiting 3,000 of the country’s most prosperous citizens to the tune of £2 billion.

  Rob Marris and I were joined at lunch in the cafeteria by Douglas Alexander, a close confidant of Gordon’s. He asked what was exercising us and we both mentioned the proposed part-privatisation of the Royal Mail. Had it yet been discussed at Cabinet, I inquired. ‘Not as such,’ replied Douglas. Astonishing.

  In the Aye Lobby this evening, Brian Donohoe recounted how Richard Branson had once poured a glass of water over his head at a private dinner for complaining when the Great Entrepreneur had announced, for the umpteenth time, that he was about to purchase new rolling stock for the West Coast line. Some time later, finding himself sitting on in a meeting between the Transport Secretary and Branson, Brian placed a glass of water conspicuously on a table between them and just as Branson was in full flow, raised the glass slowly, nodded towards Richard . . . and put it to his lips.

  Thursday, 26 March

  To the Guardian’s glassy new palace at King’s Cross to record my first ever podcast. On the way out I ran into Duncan Campbell. ‘Do you still see Julie?’ I inquired, recollecting that Julie Christie had once taken a shine to my Vietnam novel. ‘I’m married to her,’ he replied.

  Saturday, 28 March

  ‘THIS COUNTRY OF FEAR AND ANGER’ is the main headline in today’s Daily Mail. All part of a sales strategy aimed at keeping their readers permanently apoplectic.

  More seriously, the billionaire investor George Soros, interviewed in today’s Times, describes next week’s G20 summit as ‘a make or break occasion . . . a last chance to avert disaster’. If it fails, he says, the global trading and financial system could fall apart. Britain, he suggests, is particularly vulnerable. Another trip to the IMF cannot be ruled out. He goes on: ‘This is a crisis unlike any other . . . a total collapse of the financial system with tremendous implications for everyday life . . . the size of the problem is actually bigger than the 1930s.’ Mercifully, he resists the temptation to blame it all on Gordon, saying only that ‘he underestimated the severity of the problem, but then so did most people.’

  Tonight it was announced that Scotland’s biggest building society has gone bust.

  Sunday, 29 March

  Another great feeding frenzy re Jacqui Smith’s expenses, which, apparently, include a claim for two pornographic videos. Her husband, the culprit, has duly owned up, but she must have signed the form and, if she hadn’t been claiming on the family home, she wouldn’t be in this mess. ‘It’s good that you are leaving,’ Ngoc remarked this evening. ‘People hate MPs.’

  Tuesday, 31 March

  The tabloids are working themselves into a frenzy over our expenses. ‘What planet are they on?’ (Mail); ‘Credit Crunch? Not for MPs on £208,000 a year’ (Express). ‘THEY ARE ALL AT IT’ (Mirror – actually, the only place I’ve ever worked where they were all at it was Mirror Group Newspapers in the seventies). Much of it is pure lies. The twisting, scheming, malevolent hacks have simply added staff salaries, office rent and all other office costs to our overnight expenses and pretended it is all salary.

  Back to London to find an email from the New Labour high command offering, get this, a photo opportunity with Jacqui Smith. What planet are they on?

  Wednesday, 1 April

  Sunshine, pink blossom, a cloudless sky. The only jarring note, as I walked in from Kennington, a helicopter hovering above Downing Street, where Barack Obama was breakfasting with Gordon. Then to the Treasury in an attempt to persuade Stephen Timms not to let the Inland Revenue evacuate its city centre offices in Sunderland, thereby inflicting gratuitous damage on our fragile economy. He was amiable, but unrelenting. On the way I ran into Douglas Hurd, who said that after my visit to Nigeria in January 2005 the High Commissioner, Richard Gozney, had written to Number 10 saying how well the visit had gone and urging that I be kept on. I wonder if his note was drawn to the attention of The Man? If so, he probably thought that I put Richard up to it, but actually it is the first I have heard of it.

  The rulers of the world are assembling in London for the G20 summit. It’s being billed as struggle between the fiscal stimulators (Brown, Obama) and the regulators (Sarkozy, Merkel). Everyone agrees that the stakes are high. At times like this Gordon excels. He was on excellent form at Questions today, bashing the Opposition all round the chamber. One can just begin to glimpse the possibility that all may not, after all, be lost.

  Thursday, 2 April

  The fiscal stimulators appear to have won out at the G20, although not to the extent that Gordon seemed to be hoping for. Also, much talk of cracking down on tax havens and boosting the IMF. Rather less about greening the planet. Some minor rioting in the City. Overall, however, a triumph for Gordon. Even the congenital cynics seem to have been temporarily silenced.

  With Sarah to Heathrow, where I put her on a plane for Ho Chi Minh City, via Singapore. A moment I have been dreading. Just about managed to get through without blubbing. She will be gone five months.

  Friday, 3 April

  An email from Andrew Franklin at Profile to say that he has ordered another reprint of the Diaries – the third in 20 days. Where are they all going?

  Saturday, 4 April

  An ignoramus called Ian Cowie has a full page on the front of the financial section of today’s Telegraph headed ‘Them and us’, asserting that the Inland Revenue treats politicians differently from their constituents. Among his many false or misleading assertions is the following: ‘Now that the average MP claims £135,000 a year for expenses – yes, that’s right, more than five times national average earnings – this means they avoid paying £54,000 a year tax which HMRC would demand from anyone lucky enough to receive such payments.’ What he does not say, of course, is that most of this is office costs – staff salaries, rent of office, utility bills etc. – none of which ever touches our bank accounts. In what other profession are staff salaries and office rents regarded as income? How can we counter this blizzard of lies which is gnawing at the very foundations of parliamentary democracy? The trouble is, of course, we have brought so much of it on ourselves that it is now open season.

  Tuesday, 7 April

  To Manchester, where I delivered an after dinner speech to 200 members of the Political Studies Association. Is this to be my future? A light entertainer.

  Easter Sunday, 12 April

  A new feeding frenzy brewing, entirely self-inflicted. Damian McBride, one of Gordon’s shadowy henchpersons, has been caught attempting to devise some sort of smear campaign against leading Tories. He was gone by nightfall, but I doubt whether his head will be sufficient to appease the mob.

  Easter Monday, 13 April

  Sure enough the airwaves are thick with demands for a personal apology from Gordon, although there is no evidence that he had anything to do with the misbehaviour of his henchperson. At least not directly. The problem is that, for all his high-minded posturing, everyone knows this is Gordon’s modus operandi. As s
omeone remarked, there is a dark side to Gordon.

  Saturday, 18 April

  Alice Mahon, who represented Halifax until the last election, has announced she is leaving the Labour Party after more than 50 years. She said she had hoped the party would return to its core values under Brown, but it had not turned out that way. The McBride business seems to have been the final straw.

  Monday, 20 April

  Lunch in the cafeteria, where I was regaled by John Reid with an account of how, as his star rose in the run-up to The Man’s retirement, unpleasant stories about him began to appear in the Mail and the Sun.

  Then came a call from Rebekah Wade (the then Sun editor) ostensibly about other matters, who started quizzing him about the coming leadership election, at one point blurting out, ‘Why don’t you withdraw then?’ At this stage John hadn’t declared any intention to run against Gordon and, in the event, he didn’t. The implication was clear. The smears would stop, if he let Gordon have a free run.

  A subdued mood at this evening’s meeting of the parliamentary party. Denis MacShane appealed for colleagues to stop trying to appear holier than thou re expenses. Joan Humble said she had been knocking on doors over the recess and that the public appeared to hate MPs; moreover, party members weren’t that keen on us either. The chairman, Tony Lloyd, opened with a ritual denunciation of Damian McBride and called on colleagues to exercise restraint. Alistair Darling gave a little pre-Budget speech, the gist of which was: ‘These are difficult times, but we will get through them; at least we have a plan, unlike the Tories.’ He was received politely, but without enthusiasm. Nick Raynsford made a plea for future announcements to be confined only to matters on which we could deliver. I asked where the pre-Budget leaking was coming from (all weekend the media have been full of authoritative pronouncements) and was fobbed off with a jokey reference to the diaries. The answer, I suppose, is that these leaks emanate from the same source as most others: Number 10.

  Tuesday, 21 April

  Gordon has come up with some great new wheeze for sorting out – at a stroke – the great expenses crisis. He’s proposing that our second home allowance be abolished and replaced with a per diem based on attendance. As people have been quick to point out this is likely to give rise to a whole new genre of scams, à la European Parliament and House of Lords, where members just turn up to sign on and then make a run for it. Bizarrely, Gordon made the announcement on YouTube. He is proposing a vote next week so that a new system can be in place by summer, but I would be surprised if he gets away with it. I fear we are in for a lot more misery before this is resolved.

  This evening, a drink on the terrace with Sama Akaki, a Ugandan acquaintance. He brought a copy of the diaries for me to sign. ‘If you had written a book like this in Africa,’ he said, ‘you would either have disappeared or been charged with treason.’

  Wednesday, 22 April

  Budget day. A budget anticipated like no other in recent history. A last throw of the dice as we confront oblivion. Alistair’s delivery was, as ever, low key, but the news was unremittingly grim. All previous estimates are out of the window. He is now predicting that the economy will shrink by 3.5 per cent (as recently as November, he was suggesting only 1 per cent), borrowing is predicted to rise to a shocking 11.9 per cent of GDP and the books are unlikely to balance again for another decade or more. So much for having ended boom and bust. The Tories were surprisingly subdued. As well they might be. This could be their inheritance. Their usual pre-election promises of tax cuts will cut no ice with anyone. The cupboard is bare. Some crumbs here and there. A 50 per cent tax rate for those earning £150,000 and over. A small boost for child care, clean energy and the pensioners’ winter fuel allowance, but overall not much sign of the trumpeted fiscal stimulus, for the very good reason that the coffers are empty. Cameron’s response (‘the government has run out of money and moral authority’) was devastating, provided of course that one forgets that this all started with his irresponsible friends in the City. This evening, on the television news, interviews with unemployed youngsters in South Wales, a fifth of whom are without work. Another lost generation beckons. This is where we came in.

  Jack Jones has died, aged 96.

  Thursday, 23 April

  Alistair’s Budget attracts a uniformly hostile press. ‘Labour’s leaving present,’ says the headline above a piece by Larry Elliot in the Guardian. He goes on: ‘This package delivers a poison pill to the next government whoever forms it.’ Jonathan Freedland, also in the Guardian, writes: ‘To see Alistair Darling delivering his budget was like watching a man pushed from a skyscraper, falling calmly, even gracefully . . .’ The rest of the papers are less elegant. ‘They Ruined Britain’ (Express), ‘Alistair in Wonderland’ (Mail), ‘Return of Class War’ (Telegraph). ‘Red all over’ (The Times). Only the Sun (‘At least it’s sunny’) finds anything to smile about.

  Friday, 24 April

  Sunderland

  The regional director of the UK Border Agency rang to say that, after further consideration, he is going ahead with plans to deport the young woman from Benin and her 17-month-old baby. The agency have ceased pretending that she is the person whose name was on the passport she used to enter the country, but they are still insisting she is Nigerian, although she claims never to have set foot there. What will become of her when she steps off that plane in Lagos tomorrow evening? ‘We’ve been in touch with the Nigerian social services,’ he said cheerfully. I pointed out that there are virtually no functioning public services in Nigeria, but it cut no ice.

  Saturday, 25 April

  Official figures suggest a 1.9 per cent fall in GDP in the first quarter of this year, compared to the 1.5 per cent predicted by Alistair as recently as Wednesday, which, as commentators have been quick to point out, doesn’t entirely inspire confidence in his other forecasts.

  Monday, 27 April

  An outbreak of swine flu in Mexico has temporarily distracted the media from their otherwise unrelenting assault on the government. Instead the tabloids vie with each other to scare their readers witless. The Express, as ever, is the clear winner, predicting up to 120 million fatalities. Death toll so far: 103.

  A visit from M. He remains confident that Obama will abandon ‘Star Wars’, but stealthily. Cyber wars are apparently the next front line. Already the Pentagon has set up a special unit. The threat comes not from China and Russia (collapsing the economies of the Western world is not in their interests) but from al-Qaeda and assorted franchisees.

  Much pissed-off-ness at this evening’s meeting of the parliamentary party over Gordon’s latest plan for an attendance allowance in lieu of expenses. The whips have managed to persuade him that it is unworkable and a retreat is being hurriedly organised, but only at the cost of several days’ bad publicity and, to save face, we are to be forced to vote on a series of other half-baked initiatives. Nick Brown did his best to calm the waters, but there is no mistaking the anger.

  Tuesday, 28 April

  An exchange with Treasury minister Angela Eagle in the Tea Room about what I regard as the greatest of Gordon’s many follies, the decision (in his final Budget) to cut the basic rate of tax, thereby throwing away a cool £9 billion a year in return for no more than a cheap round of applause. ‘A last genuflection to bollocks,’ said Angela. She added, ‘We have come to a fork in the road. There are only two things we can do. Raise taxes or cut services.’

  Wednesday, 29 April

  Walked in with John Morris,* who remarked, apropos the current morass over allowances, ‘Our founding fathers would be turning in their graves.’

  In an upper corridor I encountered Doug Hoyle. ‘Gordon must go,’ he said. ‘He’s not even talking to his friends and even getting small things wrong.’ In response to my protest that the dear old Labour Party never gets rid of failing leaders, Doug responded, ‘You can’t carry on if you are below 30 per cent in the polls for any length of time. I never thought I’d say it, but I’d go for Alan Johnson.’

&n
bsp; For the first time in more than two years I was called at Prime Minister’s Questions and took the opportunity to inquire whether this might be the moment to reconsider whether we could afford to spend £20 billion on a new generation of nuclear weapons. This was received with stony silence on the Tory side and only muted hear-hearing on ours. Gordon gave a considered response, not quite ruling it out, but giving no encouragement.

  This evening a new crisis: the government was defeated by a Lib Dem motion demanding that Gurkhas and their dependants be given a right of residence in the UK. In vain the immigration minister, Phil Woolas, pointed out that it would cost another £1.4 billion which we could ill afford, that we had more than doubled Gurkha pensions and that in any case we had eased the immigration rules to allow several thousand more into the country. None of which cut any ice. Most sickening was the sight of the Tories, who have ruthlessly and unscrupulously used immigration and asylum against us at every election in recent memory, demanding that Gurkhas and their families be treated as honorary Englishmen and saying how disgracefully the government was treating these brave, loyal soldiers. As Phil Woolas pointed out just five, repeat five, Gurkhas were granted British citizenship prior to 1997. The whole thing has been got up by the tabloids and the Telegraph – which, ironically, are rabidly opposed to entry for just about every other category of foreigner – and the dreadful Joanna Lumley, who all week has been emoting over our television screens. In the end the government lost by a handful of votes, mainly due to abstentions on our side.