by Chris Mullin
There was a moment of light relief when Geraldine Smith, who urged support for Gordon, added, ‘Something extraordinary has happened. I am learning to love Peter Mandelson.’ This drew laughter from all save the maestro himself, who, looking up from his notes, permitted a wan smile briefly to cross his otherwise pallid visage.
Last up, in what was clearly a piece of choreography, was Neil Kinnock, who spoke of ‘a permanent, immovable truth – in politics disunity attracts the death penalty. People will say, “If they can’t govern themselves, how can they run the country?” What you see tonight is a man who has endured a firestorm, the likes of which none of us have ever experienced . . .’ He was just launching into rhetorical full flow when the chairman asked him to wind up.
By now it was clear that Gordon was safe, but it was a close-run thing. If Johnson or Miliband had jumped ship, the game would have been well and truly up. The hope is that we can make it to the summer recess without any more self-inflicted calamities. After that, who knows?
Tuesday, 9 June
To Simpson’s-in-the-Strand, where, along with Paddy Ashdown and Charles Glass, I addressed 250 well-heeled Home Counties pensioners at an Oldie literary lunch. ‘Gordon must go,’ whispered Paddy as we hovered in reception. ‘He’s damaging the government, the party and himself.’ Back at the House I ran into Charlie Falconer, who is saying the same, adding, ‘There is a blackness about Gordon.’
This evening Iain Duncan Smith put his head round my door, wanting me to sign a motion urging that the Speaker be given power to control the parliamentary timetable. So far the only declared candidates are Alan Beith and John Bercow, though George Young is beavering away discreetly in the background. Iain says that Bercow has no support whatever on the Tory side and that, if he is elected, they will simply remove him if and when they form a government. He agreed that the difficulty with George, though he would make an excellent Speaker, is that he will be seen as an establishment shoo-in – and an Old Etonian to boot – just when the public are crying out for change.
Wednesday, 10 June
Hilary Armstrong drew my attention to a wickedly funny cartoon in today’s Times entitled ‘New Cabinet Meets’, depicting an outsize Peter Mandelson clad in what appears to be an olive green Mao suit, stroking a large white cat with Gordon’s features seated on his lap, and poking out higgledy-piggledy from around him the tiny figures of Harman, Balls, Cooper, Darling, Straw, Johnson and Miliband. Hilary, who is usually cautious, remarked that James Purnell had gone with dignity and that Hazel Blears had gone because she was being briefed against. She added, ‘Half the new Cabinet don’t believe what they are saying and the public know that.’
Gordon, it must be said, was on good form at Question time, having been dealt a winning hand by the Tory health spokesman, Chris Grayling, who let slip on the radio this morning that the Tories are planning 10 per cent cuts across the board with the only exceptions health and international development. Thus armed, Gordon bashed Cameron around the chamber and, for once, came out on top. He followed this with a statement outlining a blizzard of initiatives designed to clean up expenses and reform Parliament and even the electoral system itself. It was classic Gordon, four or five closely typed pages, read at breakneck speed, a mixture of the practical and the wildly impractical. Is he serious or was it intended merely as a distraction from our – or, more precisely, his – present woes? I pointed out that, if we want to regain public confidence, there was one simple measure we could adopt at once – September sittings – putting an end to the Gladstonian summer recesses we continue to award ourselves. This prompted a note from Jack Straw (who it must be said is the sole member of the government sympathetic to September sittings) pointing out that in Gladstone’s day the recess stretched from early August to February.
This evening, to dinner in Wimbledon with James and Margaret Curran. Among the other guests, David Cowling, a pollster working for the BBC, who said that, contrary to what most of the commentariat are suggesting, there is still every chance of a hung parliament. The Tory share of the vote in the recent Euro elections had gone down, and they only did well because the Labour vote had collapsed.
Thursday, 11 June
The race for the Speaker has suddenly come to life with the announcement by Margaret Beckett that she will stand. Ann Widdecombe has also joined in. The Tories are desperate to stop John Bercow, who some think already has enough support on our side to carry off the prize on the first ballot. My instinct, thus far, is to back George Young.
Saturday, 13 June
Sunderland
David Miliband is all over the media this morning saying that he considered leaving the government last week. Do we really need to know this? Surely he could have saved it for his memoirs? We need to shut up and start governing.
Called at Boots for a bottle of Listerine. ‘Will you be putting in a bill for that?’ inquired the young woman on the till. ‘Only joking,’ she added hastily, but of course she wasn’t.
Sunday, 14 June
Sunshine. We lunched in the garden. I cut the hedge, picked up the rubbish in the street and visited our neighbour, Millie Brodie, who is visibly fading. She doesn’t get many visitors, having outlived most her contemporaries and having no children or close relatives. She sits all day alone in her big room in the nursing home in Mowbray Close, her eyesight, hearing and perennial optimism gradually failing, but a little flame still flickers.
Monday, 15 June
To the Attlee Suite in Portcullis House to listen to the candidates for the Speakership. They all spoke well enough, but no one argued convincingly for prising this place free of the tentacles of the executive. I asked what they would do about our 80-day summer recess, which I regard as a litmus test of how seriously we take ourselves. Ann Widdecombe said she would explain to our constituents that we were really working, but we’ve tried that and no one believes us. A couple of others talked half-heartedly of ‘rebalancing’ the parliamentary timetable, but no one gave a commitment to September sittings. Naive of me to inquire, I suppose, given that any such promise would probably be fatal to a candidate’s chances, with our deeply ingrained habit of voting for our own convenience over the public interest.
Later, at the party meeting, Jim Sheridan complained about the self-indulgent interviews given by Mandelson and Miliband in the weekend press. ‘If members of the Cabinet have nothing constructive to say, then would they please shut up,’ he said to mild hear-hearing.
Tuesday, 16 June
This morning, a magnificent outburst from Nicholas Soames. ‘Can we stop calling this place a gentlemen’s club? I run a gentlemen’s club which has been in existence since 1712 and, if it was run the way this place is run, it would have died 200 years ago.’
John Bercow, Margaret Beckett and George Young are emerging as the front runners in the race to be Speaker. Bercow is engaging and energetic, but suffers from the near-fatal weakness that he has virtually no support on his own side, which is precisely why many of our lot are proposing to vote for him. As for Margaret, no one doubts that she could do the job, but she is no reformer and has only recently emerged from 30 years (in government and opposition) in the warm bosom of the executive. Which leaves George Young, a Tory gent of the old school – honourable, fair-minded, firmly on the side of Parliament and acceptable to all sides. If we’d had the sense to elect him last time we might not be in our current mess. Of course he is vulnerable to the charge that he is an Eton-educated toff, but it speaks volumes that his children were educated at comprehensive schools. As my old friend Joan Maynard used to say, ‘It’s not where you are coming from that counts – it’s where you are going to.’ I have nominated him.
Wednesday, 17 June
A talk on the telephone with Rupert Hanson, who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and has only weeks to live. Rupert is close to the top of my little pantheon of local heroes. A man of enormous energy and infectious optimism, he has made a huge impact on the cultural life of Sunderland. De
spite his dire prognosis he still managed to sound positive and upbeat as ever, making plans to keep his various orchestras going after he has gone. I count it an honour to have known him.
For the third week running Gordon came out on top at Questions today. Cameron made the mistake of conceding that there is a recession across Europe (and not just in the UK, as the Tories have been pretending for months), triggering huge cheers and cries of ‘More’ on our side. It was also Speaker Martin’s last appearance and he read out a long, somewhat bitter valedictory statement, followed by tributes, some of which had a hollow ring given recent events, but he has just about managed to get out with his dignity intact.
This evening to Harrow to talk to the local Labour Party. On the way back I heard that the Telegraph has claimed another victim – Kitty Ussher, a Treasury minister.
Thursday, 18 June
The House authorities have at long last published their version of our expenses, so heavily blacked out as to be all but useless. What’s the point? The Telegraph has them all anyway. The only result has been to trigger a huge new wave of anger and derision.
‘Who are you supporting for Speaker?’ I asked Dennis Skinner in the Tea Room this evening.
‘I am voting Labour,’ he said. ‘It’s a no-brainer. I’m grateful to Margaret. She’s got me off the hook.’ He was referring of course to the possibility of having to sully his hands by choosing between two Tories. As usual, Dennis was speaking in a manner which brooked no contradiction, so I forbore to mention that I had nominated George Young, although he will find out soon enough.
Friday, 19 June
Whose idea was it to black out so much detail from our expenses? I never asked anyone to remove anything from mine. On the contrary, I had to insist they reinstate a letter that explained one of my larger claims. The only effect has been to lend credibility to what the Telegraph have done, since we can no longer argue that it was all due to be published anyway. The House authorities made fools of us all.
Monday, 22 June
To London, dreaming of the speech I would give, were I a candidate in this afternoon’s election for Speaker. My opening line: I think I can say without fear of contradiction that I am not the candidate of the whips . . . I would go on: We need a Speaker who will prise loose from this place the tentacles of the executive . . . Someone who by the very fact of his or her election would indicate to the world outside that something has changed. I believe I am that candidate.
In passing I might deny any intention to install a black-and-white TV set in Speaker’s House.
The air is thick with allegations of plots by the whips to install Margaret, but evidence is thin (although I did come across one Member who had been sounded out). Just this once the whips may have been traduced. In the event it was an uplifting occasion. Ten candidates, ten speeches, most with something original to say, even the no-hopers. The general expectation had been that it would come down to a choice between Bercow and Beckett in the final round, with the odds on Margaret, but she unexpectedly trailed in the first ballot and so by the third it boiled down to a choice between John Bercow and George Young.
‘What do you advise?’ I asked Dennis Skinner, who after the second ballot, now, unexpectedly, finds himself in the (for him) uncomfortable position of having to choose between two Tories.
‘I think it’s “stop the old Etonian” who has been educated beyond his intelligence,’ declared Dennis, who knows full that well that I am backing George.
In the event Bercow won comfortably. Much cheering from our side and from the Lib Dems, while most of the Tories sat stony-faced, arms ostentatiously folded. At David Cameron’s urging, some struggled grudgingly to their feet, applauding without enthusiasm, but most refused to budge. Tribalists on our side were openly baiting them. The Tories have been well and truly shafted and they know it.
Tuesday, 23 June
The junk journalists have wasted no time getting stuck into our new Speaker. ‘SO MUCH FOR A FRESH START,’ rages the Mail. Inside, across two pages, a piece by Quentin Letts headed, ‘Impossible. They voted for someone worse than Gorbals Mick.’ The Telegraph’s report is headed, ‘New Speaker “flipped” his home twice to avoid tax’. And on Sky News I heard Peter Oborne denouncing John Bercow as ‘a major expenses cheat . . . a disgraceful appointment’. My guess, however, is that it will all calm down in a few days and that, unless Bercow does something very silly (which can’t entirely be ruled out), he will survive.
A small flame still flickers. On a whim, I put my name down for election to the select committee being set up under Tony Wright to consider strengthening the powers of Parliament and, to my pleasant surprise, out of 22 candidates for the eight Labour places I came second. ‘A chance to leave a little legacy,’ says Tony, who is also standing down at the election.
Wednesday, 24 June
Yet more evidence of the growing insanity. Ann Clwyd says she was telephoned by a local journalist who asked if it were true that three years ago she had claimed 29 pence for two oranges. Mindful of the possible headlines she got up at 3 a.m. and started going through her receipts, eventually to her dismay coming across one which listed the offending oranges. On checking with the Fees Office, however, she was told that she hadn’t claimed for them and that the receipt should not have been published. A close-run thing. By such slender threads do political reputations hang in these feverish times.
Gordon received a bashing at PMQs. The problem is he appears to be in denial about the public finances, pretending that only the Tories will make cuts while we will go on spending. His minder, Peter Mandelson, was up in the gallery, grim-faced, feverishly taking notes. Peter is always making notes. What does he do with them?
Cousin Tony came in for lunch. Although he is 15 years older than me I realise that we have much in common. A dry sense of humour, a keen sense of the absurd, a love of fresh air and country walks – in his case on the Sussex Downs. He writes a four-line topical poem each day, a little like those Matt cartoons on the front of the Telegraph. Herewith today’s:
Cover-ups and blackings-out,
However daft, I’ve heard them.
But concealing addresses of second homes? That’s redactio ad absurdum!
My Tory neighbour on Upper Corridor South is loudly complaining of being traduced by the Telegraph. For days I have had to listen through our paper-thin walls to his relentless wailing. ‘I’m being vilified . . . my honour is at stake . . . my constituents need to know that I am straight and honest. I can only tell them that I am.’ And so on. It’s getting very wearing.
This afternoon, a rowdy debate on the Iraq inquiry. The government has retreated from its earlier insistence that it be held in private, but inevitably it wasn’t enough to satisfy the Opposition or a number of refuseniks on our side. Much hot air expended, but in the end the government won comfortably. The sad truth is that, whether it’s held in public or private, any outcome that fails to confirm that Blair is a liar and a war criminal is liable to be denounced as a whitewash.
Thursday, 25 June
I came across Angus, the Speaker’s Secretary. ‘How are you coping with the new management?’ I inquired.
He smiled and whispered, ‘It could have been you.’
Friday, 26 June
Sunderland
To the funeral of Peggy Weatherstone, an old party stalwart. Afterwards I gave an elderly lady a lift back to Beaumont Lodge, the sheltered housing where Peggy used to live. ‘Everyone’s complaining about Mr Brown,’ she said, ‘but I’ll say one thing: since you lot came to power the pensioners are better off than they’ve ever been.’ By pensioners, of course, she meant the poorer ones like herself and Peggy, not the Disgusteds of Tunbridge Wells, whose bottomless outrage fills the Daily Telegraph letters column day after day.
Monday, 29 June
Today would have been Dad’s 89th birthday.
Awoke to leaden skies. It has been like this in the North-East all weekend while the rest of the country is bathed i
n a heat wave. Gordon made a statement entitled ‘Building for the Future’, making all sorts of improbable promises about house building and giving parents the right to demand one-to-one tuition for their children, all designed to put clear water between us and the Tories. The problem is that everyone knows that, whichever side wins, there are going to be big cuts in spending, and by refusing to own up we come across as being in denial.
Later, Jack Straw introduced a Bill to set up a new quango called the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority in the hope of quenching public outrage re the abuse of our allowances. It is being rushed through in three days in order to get it on the statute book by the recess. No one seems happy about it. Not even Jack, who privately refers to it as ‘a Something Must Be Done Bill’. Only Frank Field had the courage to vote against it, while the rest of us – from all parties – trooped lamely through the Aye Lobby, complaining as we went.