Decline & Fall

by Chris Mullin

  Gordon addressed the parliamentary party. His message was that everyone should co-operate with Legg and get the expenses issue out the way once and for all. ‘Have confidence,’ he kept saying. ‘Once we get through, the public will see that it has been dealt with and it will not be an issue at the election.’ But many of our number weren’t having it. He was heckled, sporadically at first and then more generally. Twice he paused to let the hubbub die down. ‘Have faith,’ he said. But the longer he went on the worse it got. It became apparent that he had lost the attention of the meeting or a large part of it. He sat down, ashen-faced, to desultory applause. I have never seen that happen to a prime minister before. His authority is draining away before our eyes. Demoralisation is palpable. We are in a deep, deep pit and there just isn’t the will to climb out of it.

  Earlier I passed John Denham in the Library Corridor and remarked that it seemed to be a secret, known only to foreigners and viewers of BBC2, that Gordon and Alistair saved the world financial system last autumn. To which John replied, ‘If we haven’t got the confidence to say so, why should anyone else?’

  Tuesday, 13 October

  Another great feeding frenzy re expenses. Media outrage at Jacqui Smith being required only to apologise. The front page of today’s Telegraph splashes a carefully cropped – and I would have thought actionable – picture of her under the word ‘theft’. The truth is that, although she should not have claimed on her Redditch home, there is no evidence that the taxpayer lost out as a result of her doing so. On the contrary, as Home Secretary she was entitled to the use of a grace-and-favour house in Belgravia which would no doubt have cost the taxpayer a great deal more. But of course no one is interested in any of that. Meanwhile a great pall of gloom hangs over the place. There is anger with Gordon for having set up the Legg inquiry. Anger with Legg for allegedly rewriting the rules retrospectively and for letting off some of the worst offenders scot-free. Loathing of the media for effectively criminalizing us. In a matter of months we have been transformed from upright, self-confident tribunes of the people into a besieged subculture.

  Wednesday, 14 October

  Much foreboding that PMQs would deteriorate into a discreditable slanging match which would provide yet more amusement for our many tormentors. In the event there was no mention of expenses, not even from the self-righteous Nick Clegg. Instead Gordon began by reading out a roll-call of The Fallen in Afghanistan since July – 37 names in all, received in absolute silence. And that set the tone for the entire half-hour, enabling Gordon to sound positively prime ministerial. Not that it will make any difference with the punters, but these days merely to get through without disaster is some kind of triumph.

  An amusing little vignette re the government car service. Apparently, it has been suggested that, as a result of the EU’s Working Time Directive, each minister may be required to have two drivers. Much confusion. Ministers fretting about how they are going to get home. And what to do about the boxes, which can’t be taken on public transport? All madness, of course. The drivers spend most of the day sitting around anyway. This is surely the moment for a long-overdue shake-up. Only ministers who require protection should have a dedicated car; the rest should have use of the car pool as and when they need it. I feel a mini-campaign coming on.

  One other piece of lunacy: Glenys Kinnock, after a mere five months as Europe minister, has been moved sideways to cover Africa and replaced by Chris Bryant. That’s twelve Europe and nine Africa ministers in 12 years. How on earth can we expect to be taken seriously by our foreign counterparts?

  Thursday, 15 October

  To the Reform Committee, where we spent 75 minutes wrangling about how to get the appointment of select committees out of the hands of the whips. We were presented with six options – two of which we immediately ruled out. Needless to say, the two Lib Dem Members homed in on the purest, most complicated, least deliverable option and clung to it as though it were a matter of life and death, although in truth it is almost impossible to devise a system which is entirely beyond manipulation by the whips or their agents. No satisfactory conclusion was reached and it was agreed that the Clerk would circulate the four surviving options and invite each of us to list them in order of preference.

  Afterwards, at a table in the atrium of Portcullis House, I came across Mr Speaker Bercow and his wife, Sally, and I took the opportunity to bend his ear on the need for September sittings and several other matters dear to my heart, such as removing parliamentary private secretaries from select committees. He in turn sounded me out on his plan to expose Lords ministers to questioning by Commons Members and, more controversially, permitting civil partnership ceremonies in Speaker’s House. On the last point I advised caution. His tenure is by no means assured and that is very definitely a second-term issue.

  Tuesday, 20 October

  To Number 10, with other northern Members for a pow-wow with Gordon. He looked surprisingly well, all things considered. Hilary Armstrong in the chair, under the portrait of Walpole, the rest of us arrayed along the opposite side of the Cabinet table, I at the near end sandwiched between Fraser Kemp and one of the pillars. Gordon, in listening mode, furiously noting every point in black felt pen (cf. The Man, who always left note-taking to the underlings), occasionally banging his hand on the table for emphasis. There was no common theme, every issue was raised, from airport tax to the devastating job losses in the steel industry on Teesside. Re the postal workers’ uprising, he was unbending: they must agree to modernise and that’s that. The only note of optimism was injected by Fraser, who talked hopefully of electric car production at Nissan. We were there a little over an hour. Gordon responded to every point, refusing to be hurried, despite a stream of notes from officials urging him to wind up.

  That was, surely, my last visit to the Cabinet Room.

  This afternoon Pat McFadden – gaunt, dour, uncompromising – made a statement on the threatened postal strike. Meanwhile, it has emerged that the Royal Mail management are in the process of recruiting 30,000 casual workers. Both sides seem to be digging in for a long struggle.

  Nick Soames says he has so far bought about 30 copies of the diaries for distribution among friends.

  Wednesday, 21 October

  Lunch with Keith Hill, who reckons that, if (as we all expect) the Tories do form a government, they are unlikely to last more than one term. He believes they are shallow and will be unable to cope. I do not share his optimism.

  At this afternoon’s meeting of the Reform Committee, an informal session with Mr Speaker Bercow. A refreshing contrast to the tired, do-nothing regime of his predecessor. He urged us to be bold and was very sound on September sittings – even wanting to sit for the full month, rather than the modest eight days for which I have been pushing. Afterwards, a session with the former Chief Whip, Hilary Armstrong, who brought us back down to earth with a passionate defence of the status quo.

  This evening, during a division, John McFall, chairman of the Treasury Committee, remarked that he had been at a seminar in the City this morning and that the chairman – a banker – had gone out of his way to express gratitude to the government for its intervention last autumn, without which (he said) the entire banking system would have gone down. If only they’d say that out loud . . .

  Thursday, 22 October

  At Business questions I asked Harriet about September sittings. Speaker Bercow, a twinkle in his eye, knew what I was up to and called me first. I asked for a debate ‘so that we can get the excuses out of the way as early as possible’. Harriet, needless to say, conceded nothing. Astonishing how pig-headed the Establishment are on this. Electing select committee chairmen, appointing a business committee – desirable though they are – will ring no bells at all with the public, but September sittings do. How else to convince people that we are not all sunning ourselves in the South of France when Parliament is not sitting? If we care about how we are regarded, and surely we do, this is an easy win.

  Friday, 23 October />
  A great hullabaloo underway re the appearance of BNP leader Nick Griffin on Question Time last night. The Beeb have mishandled it from the beginning. Having invited him to take part, on the grounds that his party had won two seats in the European Parliament, they proceeded to hype the event for all it was worth, resulting in a trebling of the usual audience. They then made matters worse by completely setting him up, arranging a panel and an audience that was entirely hostile. It was so blatant that they managed to make the odious Griffin appear a victim, which has triggered a wave of sympathy among white working-class voters, precisely the audience to whom he seeks to appeal. Result: the BNP are claiming a surge in membership inquiries and a poll in which 20 per cent of respondents say they would consider voting BNP.

  Wednesday, 28 October

  Lunch with Charlie Glass, the former Newsweek man who was kidnapped in Beirut 22 years ago. Charlie, who has spent much of his career reporting the Middle East, reckons Lockerbie was the work of the Iranians, not the Libyans – in revenge for their passenger plane shot down by the Americans. ‘We’ll only find out when the regime falls,’ he says. Re Iraq, Afghanistan etc. he remarked that there is not a single example of American-inspired regime change, anywhere in the world, that resulted in better government.

  Thursday, 29 October

  Ditchley Park, Oxfordshire

  Shades of Gosford Park. A carriageway winding through a mile or more of parkland to an exquisite eighteenth-century mansion. A log fire burning in the Great Hall. Servants making off with our baggage, which reappears miraculously in our rooms. Below, in the basement, black-and-white photos of Clemmie and Winston Churchill sitting with the then owner, Ronnie Tree, on the south terrace. Apparently he came here a lot during the war.

  Nowadays, Ditchley plays host to a foundation designed to promote Anglo-American understanding. A place to which the Great and the Good repair to put the world to rights. I am here, courtesy of something called the Better Government Initiative, to take part in a discussion about improving the quality of government and its accountability to Parliament. We are assembled in the library, about 40 of us seated alphabetically around a long circular table, watched over by a portrait of the founder and a pair of Raeburns, depicting an eighteenth-century couple, a woman in a lace cap and a bewigged gentleman, no doubt members of the family who once inhabited this place. The cast list is impressive. A mix of retired mandarins, clerks of the House, distinguished academics and a smattering of politicians. Most of us being of a certain age, practitioners are heavily outnumbered by pontificators. I am seated between Sir David Omand (late of the Home Office, GCHQ and the Joint Intelligence Committee – a deceptively youthful man who knows where many bodies are buried) and Sir Richard Mottram (a fellow survivor from the Department of Environment during the reign of John Prescott; subsequently chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee). Others on the cast list include the ex-Cabinet Secretary Robin Butler, the current chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Alex Allan, and the Comptroller and Auditor General, Amyas Morse. Politicians include Andrew Adonis, Charlie Falconer, Chris Huhne, Francis Maude, Nick Raynsford, George Young and Shirley Williams.

  We talked from late afternoon until ten, with a break for dinner. None of it rocket science. All predicated on the belief that there is an urgent need to redress the balance between Parliament and the executive and the recognition that, given the current disgrace of the political classes, a small window of opportunity has opened. At dinner I sat next to Shirley Williams, the first proper conversation I have ever had with her (we were on opposing sides during the civil war of the late seventies and early eighties). We talked of Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Russia – where she lectures twice a year – and, of course, the banking crisis and Gordon’s handling thereof. As I have long suspected, a delightful woman, full of humanity and common sense (or am I just getting soft in old age?). The one member of the Gang of Four we could ill afford to lose.

  Later, until after midnight, Charlie Falconer hilariously entertained Richard Mottram, Andrew Adonis and me with impersonations of Gordon, Alistair and The Man, and Richard gave his version of the fall of Stephen Byers.

  ‘What possessed Blair to embroil us in Iraq?’ I inquired of a friendly mandarin who had a ringside seat throughout. ‘Was it because he believed, at all costs, in keeping in with the Americans?’

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘The Neo-Cons in Washington came up with this idea that they could carve out some sort of democracy that would eventually bring peace to the Middle East and Blair bought into the delusion.’ He added that a Pentagon official, Doug Feith, had even gone so far as to set up his own intelligence operation, behind the backs of the CIA, tasked with finding ‘evidence’ of a link between Saddam and al-Qaeda. Some wag had christened the exercise ‘Feith-based analysis’. He said that there were still those in the SIS who believe that Saddam had all along possessed chemical and biological weapons and that they might yet turn up – perhaps having been smuggled out into Syria for safe-keeping.

  Friday, 30 October

  Ditchley Park

  Daylight reveals a vast lawn sloping down to a lake, with a backdrop of golden beech and red maple and, on the rising ground beyond, a pillared folly. I ventured out just after dawn, in search of the walled gardens. Alas, they were long abandoned to bramble and dereliction; the walls, however, are pretty much intact. A pleasant way for some retired gentleman with time on his hands and a grant from the Heritage Lottery to while away his twilight years . . .

  Today’s session focused on reforming Parliament (yesterday was government). The issues were those preoccupying Tony Wright’s committee – beefing up select committees, seizing control of the parliamentary timetable, pre-legislative scrutiny. As usual, I put in a word for reducing our disgracefully long summer recess and, as usual, it failed to register. George Young, the only person of real influence present (given that he is likely to feature in a Cameron Cabinet), kept his powder dry. After lunch David Omand and I went for a walk around the lake, he recounting how (according to Alanbrooke’s diaries) the chiefs of staff used to have to drive down to Ditchley to brief Churchill and would find themselves kept waiting until late into the night while he watched a film. They then had to drive back to London through country lanes (no M40 then) in the blackout and be back at their desks in Whitehall the following morning to resume the conduct of the war. Who, I inquired, was the best minister he had worked for during his long career at the heart of government? Without hesitation he named Peter Carrington. Honourable mention also went to Jack Straw.

  Sunday, 1 November

  A big row brewing over drugs policy. All stemming from Gordon’s ludicrous decision, last year, to reclassify cannabis against the advice of the experts. Now Alan Johnson has sacked the head of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs for publicly disagreeing. Other council members are said to be on the point of resigning in sympathy. This is what happens when you rely for scientific advice on the Daily Mail.

  Monday, 2 November

  Sarah is 20 today.

  This evening to a basement dining room in the Carlton Club to record a programme for the BBC – Dinner with Michael Portillo. The other guests were Gyles Brandreth, Roy Hattersley, Anthony Howard, Oona King, Jean Seaton and a Sunday Express journalist, Julia Hartley-Brewer. Subject of discussion, political diaries. Hattersley was resolutely against on the grounds that they were a betrayal of trust, an ego trip and anyway unreliable. I had thought he might murder me, but actually we got on well, better than I can ever recall. Pleasing how old animosities melt away with the passing of time. I suspect he has always had a lower opinion of me than I have of him. I always thought he would have made a good Home Secretary, save for his one blind spot about the Birmingham Six.

  Tuesday, 3 November

  ‘Cameron reneges on EU Treaty vote pledge,’ says the main headline in today’s Telegraph over a report than the Tories are about to abandon – surprise, surprise – their ‘cast iron’ promise to hold a refer
endum on the Lisbon Treaty. All very pleasing. Europe remains the fault line running through the Tory party. They just can’t shake it off. One has only to toss the word ‘Lisbon’ across the chamber and the grey pinstripes rise like a lot of Pavlov’s dogs. The only other thing that gets them all going is mention of Margaret Thatcher.

  Rang Tony Benn, who sounded back to his old form, though he’s not yet allowed out on his own. ‘I don’t find David Cameron attractive,’ he said. ‘You can’t be a rich, white Obama.’

  Wednesday, 4 November

  The Kelly Report has been published to much wailing and gnashing of teeth. We each received a personally addressed copy in a brown envelope. As expected, he proposes a ban on the employment of relatives and an end to claims for mortgage interest (both to be phased in over five years). The latter is likely to prove expensive from the taxpayers’ point of view, given that most people’s mortgage interest is far below the likely rental values (mine is currently £231 on a flat that would cost £1,100 a month to rent). One piece of good news, which has passed almost unremarked: he proposes to end the dastardly ‘Communications Allowance’. I think I can claim some credit for that, though I shan’t do so too loudly, since not all my colleagues will be grateful.