Thursday, 12 May 1994
John Smith is dead. Carol Roberton at the Echo broke the news. A massive heart attack, she said. He had been rushed to Bart’s Hospital. No announcement yet, but obituary material coming through on the wire. After I put the phone down I turned on the television just as the surgeon at Bart’s was announcing his death.
The House met at 3.30 for tributes. The Prime Minister and Margaret Beckett spoke movingly. Margaret was with John until late last night. I don’t know how she managed to keep control. I couldn’t have done. The best line came from a Liberal, Menzies Campbell, who had known John since university – ‘He had all the virtues of a Scottish Presbyterian and none of the vices.’
After the tributes, business was cancelled and the House adjourned for the day. People hung around in little groups discussing the succession in low tones.
I stayed upstairs working on a lecture I have to give at Hull in two weeks and at about nine o’clock I went down to watch the BBC news in the Family Room. By now the House was deserted and most of the lights were turned down. When I went back upstairs I found my office had been locked, containing the keys to my flat. Eventually I unearthed a security man and rescued my keys. On the way out I met Robin Cook in the gloomy corridor leading from the Members’ Lobby to the Library. We chatted briefly about the succession. He says he hasn’t made up his mind whether to stand, but I think he will. And why not? His problem will be getting support elsewhere since his talents are not as widely appreciated as they should be. Early days, but I could see myself voting for him.
We talked about Gordon Brown. I said that I used to be impressed with him, but he had been chanting the same old slogans for years and they were wearing thin. Robin said ‘Gordon is intellectually lazy. With someone like Tommy Graham you know he is doing his best and you respect that, but Gordon is capable of much more than he is offering.’
Friday, 13 May
The report stage of Kevin Barron’s Bill to ban tobacco advertising which the government is in the process of wrecking. Loads of amendments have been tabled in order to kill it off. I stayed for the first two votes and then headed north. Travelled up with Steve Byers, one of the brightest and most agreeable of the new intake. We agreed that winning the next election was paramount. We can’t afford to take even a little gamble. That being so, he sees no alternative but to vote for Blair. He may well be right.
We’re all under a vow of silence as regards the leadership to allow a decent interval to elapse until John is buried. The Independent on Sunday rang to ask how I would vote and I refused to say.
Saturday, 14 May
Sunderland
To a party at Bryn Sidaway’s in the evening to celebrate his election as council leader. I asked everyone who they would support for the leadership. Prescott was mentioned surprisingly often. He seems particularly popular with the northern working-class males. When you ask who is most likely to lead us to an election victory the answer was almost always the same: Blair.
To the Home Office for a much-delayed meeting with the Home Secretary Michael Howard to hand over my dossier of alleged miscarriages. His room is massive. One enters from the far end and walks across acres of carpet towards a distant figure in shirtsleeves enthroned behind a long table. On the wall two large oils of battlefield scenes, one the Battle of Blenheim. Behind, laid out neatly, the day’s newspapers. I sat alone on one side, facing him. On his side, a woman from C3 (the Division for the Perpetuation of Miscarriages of Justice) and a man from the press office.
Besides the dossier I raised with him the long delay in reconsidering the Carl Bridgewater case and his plans for an independent review tribunal. He was amiable but unhelpful. He didn’t even glance at the dossier and repeated the usual bland assurances that all new evidence would be carefully considered. On Carl Bridgewater the woman from C3 said how difficult it was since the convicted men’s representative kept making new submissions. I replied that the last one of which I was aware was dated 1 February and she confirmed that this was so. Three and a half months ought to be ample. What can they be playing at? As for the review tribunal, he could offer no estimate of a timetable for its creation, even though yet another Criminal Justice Bill is expected in the new year. The fact is, of course, there are no votes in it, so it isn’t a high priority. I pressed him as hard as I could on the need for the tribunal to have at least a reserve power to conduct its own investigations, and not to be dependent on the police. He said he would think about this, although clearly he is minded to leave investigations to the police, which, I said, would be a fatal flaw.
Although all candidates for the leadership are staying impressively silent, everyone else is talking. Alice Mahon said to me, ‘I’m in the Stop Blair camp.’ To which I replied, ‘I am in the Win the Next Election Camp.’
Later, coming out of the division lobby, John Gilbert invited me to his room. The proposition on which he was seeking my opinion was this: with the exception of Margaret Beckett, who held a junior post in the Callaghan government, none of the likely candidates for the leadership had Cabinet experience. Indeed none had ever set foot in a government department, except to protest at some aspect of government policy. This was going to be a serious handicap both in winning the election and, in the event of victory, of governing. There was, however, one person (not yet a candidate) who had the requisite experience. His name? Roy Hattersley. Apparently (and I am inclined to believe) this is not Roy’s idea, although he has been consulted. He is understandably reluctant to run and would need to be convinced that there was serious support. Soundings are therefore being taken to see if the idea is a runner. If it is, a delegation led by Cledwyn Hughes would go to Jim Callaghan and suggest that he persuade Blair and the others to stand down in favour of Roy and in the interests of the party. The calculation being that Roy would only be likely to serve one term (I wouldn’t bet on that, if we won) and that by the time he went the others would be better equipped to shoulder the burden of office.
The idea has a superficial attraction. No one could ever allege that Roy wasn’t up to the job. Indeed there were many occasions during the Kinnock years when one would have given a great deal to see Roy in charge. On the other hand, he is over sixty. His retirement has been announced. He represents the past rather than the future. On top of which he has never been all that popular either with the public or with the party, despite his undoubted ability. I agreed to sound out friends and report back.
Wednesday, 18 May
A depressing meeting of the Campaign Group, always at its worst when discussing election slates. The gist of most contributions seemed to be that Blair must be stopped at any cost. Scarcely anyone mentioned issues or the desirability of winning the election. For a while it looked as though they were going to throw their lot in with John Prescott although Dennis Skinner, who knows him well, is very much against. I can’t bear the thought of another phoney-left leader. Give me an honest right-winger any day. The division bell intervened before I could contribute and the meeting ended inconclusively.
To Edinburgh for John Smith’s funeral. I caught the seven o’clock from Sunderland and ran into Derek Foster, Ronnie Campbell, David Clark, Steve Byers and John McWilliam on the platform at Newcastle. John Prescott and a crowd of members from Yorkshire were further down the carriage and, to judge by the laughter emanating from that direction, in surprisingly high spirits.
We were in Edinburgh by 9.20 a.m. and walked together down the Royal Mile to the car park beside Holyrood Palace where coaches were waiting to take us to Cluny Parish Church, round the corner from John’s home in the south of the city. Everywhere photographers with long lenses. The surrounding streets sealed to traffic. A rumour that the Israeli Prime Minster was coming, which was why security was especially tight. In the event, there was no sign of him.
We were in our seats an hour and a half before the service. I sandwiched between the Ulster Unionist John Taylor and Barbara Roche. The Prime Minister and his wife, who arrived about thirty minutes in advance, were five rows in front. John’s coffin surmounted by a wreath of white lilies, rested before the altar.
For all practical purposes, a state funeral. The Queen was represented by Jim Callaghan. A frail, solitary figure in morning dress, he arrived in a Daimler flying the Royal Pennant, escorted by police outriders. The last to take his seat before the immediate family.
A lean, spare service, no kneeling, a few good hymns. Tributes from Donald Dewar and Derry Irvine, who had both known John since university, and acting Labour leader Margaret Beckett on the verge of tears. A psalm in Gaelic beautifully sung by Kenna Campbell. Finally, the coffin was carried out to begin its journey to Iona where he will be buried privately tomorrow.
So much grief for one man who never made more than the most minor impact in government. What we were mourning, of course, was promise unfulfilled. After years in the wilderness, a thoroughly decent man appeared from almost nowhere and offered us the hope of rebuilding our shattered social fabric, and then, suddenly he is gone.
Briefly I attended the reception at Parliament House. As I left, a pane of glass, half an inch thick, fell from a skylight about sixty feet up. My briefcase was smothered with fragments. A few feet more and the next funeral might have been mine.
Tuesday, 24 May
Tony Blair came to a poorly attended meeting of the Civil Liberties Group to tell us about civil liberties under Labour, although none of us now expects that he will be Home Secretary in a Labour government. I asked if he would support a requirement that Freemasons in public office should be obliged to disclose. ‘Yes, why not,’ he replied, ‘but don’t expect me to make a major issue out of it.’
Wednesday, 25 May
Not many takers for a Hattersley ticket. Bruce Grocott, Dawn Primarolo and Tony Banks all said ‘no’. I espied John Gilbert consulting Dennis Skinner, an unlikely duo if ever there was, and he told me afterwards that Dennis sounded interested.
Tuesday, 31 May
To Windsor Castle with Ngoc’s friends, Mr and Mrs Thanh, whom we collected from Heathrow earlier this morning.
‘What’s this room?’ asked Sarah as we entered an apartment stuffed with pictures by Rubens and Van Dyck.
‘It’s the Queen’s Drawing Room,’ I read from the sign above the door.
‘Does that mean the Queen did those drawings?’
Sunday, 5 June
Brixton Road
After lunch, we loaded up the car and set out for Sunderland. As we passed Sherwood Forest, Ngoc explained to Sarah about Robin Hood. This prompted many questions. ‘When did Robin Hood live? Before you and Dad were born? Before Granny and Grandpa? Did he ever visit Vietnam?’ Finally, she remarked that Robin Hood wouldn’t give us any money because we had a lot. In fact, he would probably take our money and give it to the poor.
Wednesday, 8 June
This evening I chaired a rally at Farringdon School for our European Parliament candidate, Alan Donnelly. Roy Hattersley was the main speaker. ‘You will be fair,’ he said. ‘Why of course, Roy. What do you take me for?’
Like all Donnelly events, the rally was organised like an American convention – balloons, a band, a starlet or two, plus a couple of hundred ultra-loyal pensioners. The only hiccup came at the end when a net full of balloons was unleashed onto the band, who were struggling to play a tune suitable for our triumphal exit.
When I returned home, I found a message to ring John Gilbert. You’ll never guess, I said, I’ve just spent the evening with Roy Hattersley. John was ringing to say that his little plan to install Roy in the leadership had come to nought. The great man had declared that he wanted none of it.
Friday, 10 June
A call from Giles Radice. Might I be persuaded to vote for Tony Blair? I could be, I said, but I hadn’t yet made up my mind. ‘You’d be a big catch,’ he said. What he means is they’d like a left-winger to show the breadth of their support and I’m the most likely sucker.
Saturday, 11 June
A call from Tony Blair. Could he count on my support? Possibly, I said, but I didn’t want to commit myself at this stage. Also, I would like to hear his views on coping with the power structure. We left it that I would call his assistant for an appointment next week.
Stella Rimington, the head of MI5, gave the Dimbleby lecture before an invited audience at the Banqueting House. She was full of assurances that MI5 didn’t spy on politicians or on legitimate dissenters (no mention of CND, the National Council for Civil Liberties or the miners’ strike). I’m inclined to believe her, if she is talking about the present, but she rather damaged her case by pretending that nothing of the sort had happened in the past.
Monday, 13 June
Ann Taylor rang to see if I would vote for Blair. I seem to be a prime target, but I can’t think why they bother. Tony’s going to walk it.
Wednesday, 15 June
An hour at the Campaign Group. Unsurprisingly, Ken Livingstone has failed to find the necessary thirty-four nominations and has withdrawn from the leadership election.
Later, I gatecrashed a meeting of the Tribune Group and listened to the leadership candidates. All very fluent, but a little thin on detail.
Thursday, 16 June
Northern Ireland questions. I asked why the RUC were still resisting the use of tape recorders at Castlereagh and refusing to admit solicitors to interrogations. Who better, I asked, to introduce these elementary reforms than a Secretary of State who, as Attorney General, had presided over a series of disasters in the English legal system? A pathetic reply from the Minister of State, John Wheeler. I flashed a smile at the Secretary of State, Patrick Mayhew, who was sitting beside him, but he was not amused.
Nominations for the leadership closed at 4 p.m. Blair has over 150 and Margaret Beckett and John Prescott about forty each. Given that there is no serious ideological difference between the three of them, it seems only logical to vote for the one most likely to help us win the election and that’s obviously Blair. I decided not to nominate him, however, in order to distinguish myself from the jobseekers who are flocking to his banner.
Monday, 20 June
Ngoc delivered me to Durham for the 10.46. On the way down, I read a shocking article in the Guardian about a new famine in Ethiopia. This one threatens to be worse even than the last. It said that parents were having to choose which of their children to feed, in the hope that at least one or two would survive. Not for the first time, I find myself wondering whether I wouldn’t be more use to the world if I worked for an aid agency instead of being a minor politician ministering to the generally sullen and relatively prosperous. The trouble is I have no skill to offer, except as a propagandist. I speak no foreign language, couldn’t drill a water hole or administer medicine. I am entirely useless. Perhaps one day I shall be the Overseas Development Minister. Nothing would give me greater pleasure.
Thursday, 23 June
Tea with Tony Blair. We sat on the little terrace outside his office on the first floor of One Parliament Street. A lovely little enclave, but for the dust and noise from the building site next door. Tony confirmed that he was committed to a national minimum wage, which is, for me, the bottom line. I wanted to hear the words from his own lips, because it has been suggested that he is not sound on this issue. However, it is referred to in his statement of values published today (which, that apart, is a rather thin document).
I pressed him to think about how he was going to deal with the power structure. He confirmed that he will go for disclosure of political donations and also that he will disqualify hereditary peers from voting in the Lords. He also confirmed that he would make the intelligence services accountable to Parliament rather than to the executive. On the media, he was non-committal. I told him that we won’t survive unless we tackle ownership. Tony listened, but said nothing except that they could do an awful lot of damage. I suspect he will err on the side of caution. I shall keep badgering.
I also tackled him about the kind of regime he envisaged. He confirmed that it will be broad-based. ‘I am not bothered about left or right as much as competence.’ He said one other interesting thing. ‘There is a tradition in the Labour Party of talking big and acting small. It should be the other way round.’ We should learn from the Tories, who always did much more than they said they would. Amen to that.
Monday, 27 June
To London on the 10.46. Alan Milburn, a strong Blair supporter, joined me at Darlington. I expressed concern that Tony was too close to Peter Mandelson. Alan said he had put this to Tony and that Tony had said he recognised that his association with Mandelson was damaging. Alan takes the view that Peter is hooked on manipulation. ‘He just can’t stop himself.’ By way of evidence, he pointed to evidence of Peter’s hand in some of the press speculation the weekend after John Smith’s death. Alan agreed that Peter was bound to be a minister in a Blair regime, but doubts that he’ll ever make the Cabinet. ‘He’s only got two supporters in the Shadow Cabinet – Blair and Brown.’ Quite so.
Later, a drink on the terrace with Charles Clarke, who used to work for Neil Kinnock. He came to discuss the minority report on party funding, which I drafted for the select committee. He was very complimentary, said it would form the basis for legislation and advised me to get something drafted. He had one or two reservations: it would be unwise to exclude recent donors from receiving political appointments because that would include trade unionists and we were short of talent to take over some of the Tory quangos. State funding, he said, could only be introduced with all-party support. The only way that could be obtained would be to introduce disclosure and then wait two or three years for the Tory funding to suffer, as it would be bound to. Then they might be more sympathetic. Good thinking, but I’d prefer not to have to introduce it at all.
It was apparent that, unlike many in the Labour Party, Charles had given serious thought to coping with the power structure. So, he claimed, had Kinnock. The problem, he said, had been Hattersley, with whom there had been considerable tension. Cledwyn Hughes had apparently drafted a two-clause Bill for Neil, which would have disenfranchised hereditary peers. He also said that Neil had been determined to do something about Murdoch.
This evening, to the Foreign Office for a drinks party given by Douglas Hogg for veterans of the Intelligence Services Bill. The spooks were out in force – the head of all three services, MI5, MI6 and GCHQ. I chatted to a man from SIS who has the responsibility of preparing the service for the dawning of what passes for democracy. I asked if he could cope with an oversight committee that was responsible to Parliament rather than to the Prime Minister. He went a bit red in the face and said it would be a matter for the politicians. (Maybe, but I bet they would fight it like hell.)
I asked the head of GCHQ if it was true that they bugged domestic as well as international telephone calls. Far from denying it, he said there was nothing to stop them, ‘providing it was properly warranted’. I asked what there was to stop an employee on the nightshift indulging in a little freelance tapping. He said that the system of cross-checking was such that it would show up on the computer and could not easily be erased.
Tuesday, 28 June
A drink with the Sunderland Echo’s new lobby correspondent, a young journalist called Tom Baldwin, who is hungry for stories. I explained to him that I was anxious to keep many of my more interesting activities out of the Echo since they only lead to a wave of anonymous letters demanding to know why their MP was taking an interest in matters beyond the roundabout at the end of the Durham Road. I must try to keep him supplied with local stories if he is to be kept out of mischief.
One of those rare days – there are about two or three a year – on which I am permitted to address the nation, albeit in sound bites. Sir John May’s inquiry into the Guildford and Woolwich cases reported, four years and eight months after it was set up. All very hush-hush, considering it was supposed to be a public inquiry. Most of his interviews have been conducted in private. The contrast with the judicial inquiry being conducted by Lord Justice Scott into the Iraqi arms affair is stark. Even finding out where and when the press conference was taking place proved difficult. My secretary, Jacky, rang the Inquiry number, but obtained no answer. I rang the Private Secretary to the Attorney General and he said the Home Office were dealing with it. I rang the Home Secretary’s Private Secretary and he referred me to a civil servant who had worked for the Inquiry, but had now returned to another department. He turned out not to have come in because of the train strike. I rang the Press Association legal correspondent and she said she had been sworn to secrecy. Very odd. Anyway, I eventually tracked the press conference down to the Royal Institute of Mechanical Engineers, just over the road from Parliament.
I persuaded the Home Office to send me over an advance copy, which I received at 12.45. Having read the introduction and the conclusions, I drafted a short statement, made about twenty copies and wandered over to the press conference in good time to distribute my statement to the waiting hacks.
Just as well I did. The report was more or less a snow job, absolving just about everyone except the Guildford Four. There is mild criticism of the police and the DPP, but no names are named. No criticism of the forensic scientist who rewrote his evidence at the suggestion of the police and the prosecution. No view as to how the confessions were obtained – and you would have to have fallen off a Christmas tree to believe they were voluntary. No criticism of his fellow judges, no evidence indeed that Sir John has even interviewed them. And at the end he absolves the legal system as a whole.
At the press conference he was repeatedly asked to express a view about the guilt or innocence of the four and declined to do so, offering instead weasel words about their being entitled to be regarded as innocent. He added that his judicial training constrained him from expressing a view. Well it certainly hasn’t constrained some of his judicial colleagues and they didn’t have the benefit of an inquiry lasting four years and eight months.
While the press conference was still going on, I nipped downstairs and recorded interviews with ITN, BBC Television, BBC Radio, RTE, Sky and one or two others. I then returned to the House to finish a piece for the Guardian which I faxed over just after five. Finally, a quick telephone interview with the PM programme and then to King’s Cross for the train to Sunderland. All in all, a good day’s work.
Monday, 4 July
Sarah said to me at breakfast this morning, ‘I know what you wish, Dad.’
‘What’s that, Sarah?’
‘You wish you didn’t have to go to your Parliament so you could stay here with me.’
As she was leaving for school, she said, ‘Bye, Dad; I hope you won’t be bored in your Parliament.’
A brief chat with Livingstone in the division lobby at ten. I put it to him that, if he had made more effort, he would have been a contender for the leadership by now. ‘No I wouldn’t,’ he said. ‘There has been an irreversible shift to the right. It always happens when we are in opposition for a long time. It happened in the fifties. Look at Tony Banks. He has worked hard in Parliament and where has that got him? Forty or fifty votes in Shadow Cabinet elections. Maybe I would have got a few more, but not many.’
Ken thinks everything will change when we get into government. He is very gloomy about the economy which, he believes, is in a worse state than anyone anticipates and, if so, that will be his chance. All I can say is he’d better start doing some ground work. Funnily enough he was optimistic about a Blair regime facing up to the power structure. ‘They might be quite good on things like that, because they won’t be able to afford to do anything else. We might even get some decent gay rights legislation.’
A few minutes later I was sitting scribbling in the Members’ Lobby when Nicholas Soames and Tristan Garel-Jones bore down upon me. ‘Tell me, Mullin,’ boomed Soames, ‘supposing Labour wins the next election, what job are you going to get?’ He added quietly, ‘They’ll put you in the Home Office, won’t they?’
‘I don’t think I’ll be allowed anywhere near the Home Office.’
To which Garel-Jones added, ‘Of course he won’t. When Labour becomes the government people like Jim Callaghan and Walter Harrison take over. People like Mullin will have to move from one safe house to another under cover of darkness.’
Wednesday, 6 July
This evening I chaired a meeting organised by Amnesty International at the Friends Meeting House for an American nun, Sister Helen Prejean, who is campaigning against the death penalty. About 200 people attended. Sister Helen is over here to launch her book Dead Man Walking, a moving account of her work with death row prisoners in Louisiana. She held everyone spellbound for ninety minutes. ‘Only politicians benefit from the death penalty,’ she said. ‘It enables them to pretend they are tough on crime without actually addressing the causes of crime.’ She was in favour of public executions on the grounds that once the public knew the full horror, they’d react against it. An interesting thought, but I have my doubts. The best hope, she said, was that the Supreme Court would eventually put a stop to it, as they had done once before. Already President Clinton had appointed two Supreme Court justices who were more or less opposed and others were coming up for retirement. She also said that Hillary Clinton is against. Perhaps we should be lobbying her, rather than her husband.
Friday, 8 July
Sunderland
At this evening’s surgery, a young woman who said she had been summoned by a DSS fraud officer who had accused her of cohabiting. She denied this, but said he wasn’t interested in hearing her side of the story. Instead he propositioned her. He gave her the weekend to think about it and asked her to call back next week. I took a signed statement from the woman and rang the head of the DSS fraud section. He told us to tell her to go ahead with the appointment and he would arrange for the interview to be monitored.
Saturday, 9 July
This week’s Tribune carries my article on why I am voting for Tony Blair, accompanied by a simply awful photograph. I fear it is going to get me into trouble with some people.
To Durham for the Miners’ Gala. I walked in with the Wearmouth banner. Just before we reached the County Hotel we were joined by John Prescott and his wife Pauline and the cameras homed in on us. Pauline, I suspect, is not entirely at home in the world of politics. John introduced us but my name clearly didn’t ring a bell. Seeing the camera round my neck she inquired, ‘Are you a freelance photographer?’
Whereupon John hissed, ‘I told you, you should have stayed on the balcony’.
Wednesday, 13 July
To the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre for Mo Mowlam’s media conference. There was a lot of crap about information superhighways and the wonders of optical-fibre networks all designed to intimidate us into doing away with regulation and allowing the market to let rip. A dreary man from BT told us that it was already possible to transmit the entire contents of the Encyclopedia Britannica around the world in less than half a second and that optical fibre made possible a simultaneous two-way conversation between every man, woman and child on the planet. A fat lot of use if you are starving. A man from Sky told us that nothing needed doing about anything. A man from cable TV said that they must be let in on the act as soon as possible. There was even a man from the Guardian/Observer who wanted to sweep away such limits as there are on cross-media ownership so he could get into television. He promised that the Guardian’s high standards would be maintained, but as someone pointed out, the Guardian was already a big shareholder in GMTV which is junk television incarnate.
There was a session on ownership. David Glencross of the ITC said that the market share of advertising should be the determining factor. He suggested a maximum of 25 per cent. Greg Dyke made a good speech. Multichannel TV was coming whether the Labour Party liked it or. The key issue was not delivery systems, it was programmes. Sky is buying 93 per cent of its programmes from the US. Off-the-peg American drama can be bought in at $50,000 an hour, whereas British-made drama cost $600,000 an hour. We had to find a way of encouraging programmes. The EC rule about 51 per cent local content should be applied to Sky, together with the same quotas on news, current affairs and regional television that applied to terrestrial TV. He said the rules on cross-media ownership had been fixed by Thatcher for the benefit of Murdoch. News International must be prevented from controlling both the delivery system and the encryption, otherwise no one else would get in on the market.
I put my tuppence ha’penny worth in from the floor. We shouldn’t be intimidated by all this technobabble, I said. We should be concerned about the social, political and cultural consequences. We already had junk newspapers, now we were faced with junk television and soon we would have a junk culture. We had to find a way of preventing a handful of megalomaniacs from taking control of everything we see and read. It went down like a lead balloon, although one or two people (including Bob Phillis, deputy director general of the BBC) came up to me later and said they agreed.
Afterwards I put it to both Greg Dyke and Bob Phillis that, in crude political terms, a Labour government had about six months after taking office to do something about Murdoch or else he would do something about us. They both agreed. Greg said go for the encryption system. Phillis said he would invite Murdoch to choose between his newspapers and his television interests. I asked if either of them were talking to Mo or Robin Cook. Neither of them are. I just hope someone manages to smuggle a message through to the top, otherwise we are doomed.
To John Smith’s memorial service at Westminster Abbey and then home on the six o’clock train. For most of the journey I was alone in the carriage except for a party at the far end who seemed to be receiving an unusual level of service. Staff from the dining car were whizzing back and forth with food and gin and tonics. At first I assumed it was some British Rail bigwigs, but after a while curiosity overcame me and I went to take a look. It was the Duke of Edinburgh. There were three people with him, one of whom appeared to be a detective. He got off at Darlington carrying a battered briefcase.
Saturday, 16 July
My old friend Hugh MacPherson has used his Tribune column to denounce me for supporting Blair. He even suggests that I have done it in pursuit of a job, which is a bit low. Never mind, my back is broad.
Monday, 18 July
A day in the office dictating letters to Sharon and then Jacky drove me to Durham for the 17.02. Sarah came too. ‘Don’t be boring in your Parliament, Dad,’ she said.
Wednesday, 20 July
At the suggestion of Dale Campbell-Savours I put down an amendment to delete Sir Marcus Fox from the committee being set up to look at the cash-for-questions scandal and, to my amazement, it was called. As a result, we spent an amusing hour and a half challenging the composition of the committee on the grounds that it is choc-a-bloc with vested interests. The Tory members have eighteen directorships and nine consultancies between them. The whole thing is a fiasco. What a shameless bunch they are.
At 11.30 p.m. I went to the Chamber for a debate on the newspaper price war triggered off by Murdoch’s attempt to sink the Independent and the Telegraph. I had intended just to listen to the debate, but in the end felt inspired to make a little speech along the lines that Murdoch was polluting our culture and something must be done about him. It was 2 a.m. by the time I got home.
Thursday, 21 July
To Shenfield to see Uncle Terence, aged eighty-six, who is dying of cancer but in remarkably good spirits. We sat in the garden. He told some lovely stories about his early years working in the City on a starting salary of £52 a year. He stood at the gate waving as I walked away. ‘I have no bitterness,’ he said. ‘That’s one of the things you learn when you get older – not to be bitter or to hate anyone.’
I took the train back to Liverpool Street and caught the Circle Line back to the House. It wasn’t until I saw someone reading an Evening Standard that I remembered that today is the day that we elect our new leader. It only goes to show how much has changed. Fifteen years ago, I’d have been on tenterhooks, following every detail. Today, it is all predictable. Tony Blair won 57 per cent on the first ballot. John Prescott is to be deputy.
Friday, 22 July
A coffee with the local head of Barclays Bank who is called, appropriately, Mr Sunderland. Barclays is based in one of the new pavilions overlooking the river at North Hylton. The purpose of the meeting was for Mr Sunderland to assure me what a customer friendly, socially minded institution Barclays is. I left him with details of a constituent who borrowed from Barclays to purchase a business which was grossly overvalued and which predictably went bust. Having extracted everything possible from the sale of the business, Barclays is now after his home as well.
From Barclays, I went across to Grove Cranes on the opposite side of the river for a meeting with management and unions. Groves, which is American owned, is about to lay off another 300 workers. The company’s cranes are state of the art, but demand is low and the prospects gloomy. The management are hoping for a big order from the Ministry of Defence, but they didn’t think that there was anything we could do to hurry it along. This is the sort of situation where I feel entirely useless. What my constituents need most is work, but in the eight years I have represented them we have lost the shipyards, the pit and a large slice of our engineering capacity, and I cannot think of a single job that has been created or saved as a result of my efforts. Even Bob Clay’s heroic efforts to save the Pallion shipyard ended in failure. To paraphrase John Garrett, ‘Britain has been in decline for the last hundred years. The role of Parliament has been to provide a running commentary.’
Wednesday, 27 July
Jan Gordon, a mature student from Hull University, has been helping to sort through my Birmingham Six papers. One box is filled entirely with abuse, much of it of a crude and disgusting nature and mostly anonymous, but every now and then a gem. My favourite, which I used to read out at public meetings during the Birmingham Six campaign, is from Mr R. C. Sindle of Mid-Glamorgan. Dated 26 February 1992, it was prompted by an exchange I had with a retired judge on Newsnight. It reads:
… you certainly came across as a smug sanctimonious git, if ever I saw one. Lord Lane has done more for his country than all the muck-raking scum of the Labour Party put together. And, if the name of Mullins implies what I think it does, then why are you not peddling your crusade for human rights in Ireland? God almighty! What country needs it more?
Mind you Mullins, they are probably silly questions, aren’t they? Crusaders among the bigots of Ireland are just as likely to get the shit shot out of them, and we couldn’t have that happen to you, could we? But then again, why not?
Awoke to hear that Rupert Murdoch has said he could ‘imagine’ backing Blair. I can imagine him backing Blair too, but solely as a means of protecting his assets if he thinks there is going to be a Labour victory. There is bound to be a lot of free-lunching going on between now and the next election. I pray that we don’t fall for it, although I can’t say I’m entirely confident.
Wednesday, 31 August
To Shenfield to record an interview with Uncle Terence. Increasingly emaciated, but still in good spirits. What a wonderful old gent he is. Morphine three times a day. A liquid diet. Never once have I heard him complain. His voice was strong. His mind crystal clear. His first memory was of the little white coffin in which his infant sister, a cot death, was carried away and of his mother’s distress. That was in 1911.
We recorded for about an hour and a half and it didn’t seem to tire him at all. Afterwards he took a walk in the garden with Sarah and we filmed that, too. Finally, Sarah sang him some of her Vietnamese songs and we said goodbye.
Saturday, 3 September
We were invited to a party at Sedgefield to celebrate Tony Blair’s accession. I would like to have gone, but gallantly turned it down because we had already agreed to attend a neighbour’s silver-wedding party. He had a good job on the oil rigs until he was made redundant, since when he has made heroic efforts to find employment. He tried running a mobile hot-dog stand at Seaburn, then he tried his hand at carpet cleaning, then he took a job as a security man – seventy hours a week, two quid an hour. Now he has grown a ponytail and runs a little New Age shop near the Park Lane bus station and seems to be getting by.
John Major has made a speech about yob culture. Incredible that the party that gave us mass unemployment, the Broadcasting Act (which introduced an era of junk television) and which enjoys the unqualified support of newspapers like the Sun and the Daily Star, now has the nerve to lecture us about yobbery.
Friday, 16 September
The novelist Joanna Trollope was on Desert Island Discs this morning. Among the records she chose was Mozart’s Great Mass in C, which, she said, was the theme tune from ‘Alan Plater’s A Very British Coup.’ A bit much.
Monday, 19 September
The chimney sweep came. ‘Still on holiday?’ he asked slyly. I despair. I have worked every weekday this month. I have engagements on fifteen out of thirty evenings and still most of my constituents believe I am sunning myself.
Wednesday, 21 September
Sunderland
I spent the morning visiting community service projects run by the Probation Service. Like many people I was sceptical about their value, but having seen them in operation I am persuaded. Attendance is enforced rigorously. Three failures to turn up, or even late arrivals, result in a report to the court with a possibility that a custodial sentence can be substituted. I was taken around by a senior probation officer who explained that there were about 320 people on projects in the city. They work mainly in supervised groups of up to six. The projects I visited included a carpentry workshop, a flat in the Garths which had been converted into a crèche and the conversion of a piece of wasteland in Plains Farm into a garden for disabled children from Portland Special School. I also dropped in on a group who were maintaining a cemetery in Silksworth, and a project where bollards were being installed to prevent joyriding on the riverside at North Hylton. The kids on the schemes have been convicted of offences ranging from burglary, car theft, misuse of drugs and violence. Some were career criminals. Several were young women. For most, this was the only real work they had ever done in their lives. Some were actually proud of what they were doing. A young woman at Plains Farm in her twenties told me how moved they had all been at the sight of the disabled children using the youth centre where they were working. Even the hard men on the project had been moved. One or two were even coming back out of hours as volunteers.
Monday, 26 September
Strasbourg
A little Euro junket organised by Jack Cunningham. We arrived about two and went immediately to the European Parliament – a monstrous carbuncle of steel, concrete and glass grafted onto a magnificent medieval city. Our party consists of about twenty MPs, including several good friends. Object of exercise: to familiarise ourselves with the EC and meet our Euro colleagues. About time I learned about the EC since, like it or not, it is destined to play an ever greater role in our lives. I am astoundingly ignorant about Europe. This is the first time I have set foot in France for twenty years.
We began with a briefing from Wayne David and Christine Crawley, leader and deputy leader of the large Labour contingent. Everything about the European Parliament seems ludicrous. The committees meet three weeks a month in Brussels and in the fourth week the entire circus moves to Strasbourg for the plenary session. Every month tons of papers are transported back and forth in a long convoy of pantechnicons, trailed by hundreds of officials. Outside every MEP’s room is a steel trunk into which the members pack their papers for transport back to Brussels or vice versa. The Parliament has virtually no power over the executive. Commissioners make statements, but cannot usually be cross-examined. Obtaining an answer to a written question can take weeks.
I spent an hour in the hemicycle listening to an antiseptic debate on air-traffic control. Speakers are chosen by party so there are no dissenters. They are allocated between one and five minutes, according to the size of their group. Debate consists of statements read into the record. No interventions are permitted and passion is entirely absent.
In the evening, dinner with a group of MEPs. They all think the Parliament should be in Brussels, alongside the executive. Apparently a suitable chamber already exists, but the French will have none of it, even though the Strasbourg Parliament is hardly used for the forty-one weeks a year that it is not sitting. It gets worse. When the EC takes in the Scandinavians and Austria, the existing building will not be large enough to accommodate everyone so the French are building a new Parliament alongside the existing one. They got their way by blackmailing the Edinburgh summit. The new monster is costing billions and no one, except the French, want to use it.
The more I learn about the EC, the more opposed to proportional representation I become, especially anything involving the list system. The great strength of the British system is that our elected representatives are accountable to constituencies which, to some extent at least, keeps their feet on the ground. Most continental Europeans are appointed from lists drawn up by their party apparatus. Once elected they are accountable only to the apparatus. All kinds of corruption surrounds the drawing up of the list. Some countries use it as a way of rewarding or exiling distinguished or errant national politicians – like a sort of House of Lords – and the unscrupulous can make a great deal of money by manipulating the lavish allowances that MEPs enjoy as a substitute for power. Christine Crawley said that in the last session her seat was next to the former Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, but she had seen him only once in five years.
Tuesday, 27 September
Strasbourg
A huge catastrophe in the Baltic. A ferry travelling between Sweden and Estonia has gone down. At least 800 dead.
After breakfast I rang home. Sarah said, ‘Are you in France, Dad?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you go there by aeroplane?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is France near Vietnam?’
I walked to the Parliament, about a mile and a half along the canal which later becomes a river. On the way in I met an Englishman who interprets in three languages, including Dutch. He said that some of the Greek members were just turning up, signing in and going home again.
An hour in the hemicycle listening to the debate on Ireland. John Hume spoke well and received a standing ovation. The only real dissent came from Ian Paisley, who was cut off after two minutes. It seems that Paisley is no more popular in the Euro Parliament than he is in ours.
Later, a briefing with Dave Feickart, one of the Trade Union Congress’s growing team of lobbyists in Brussels. He made the very fair point that the TUC gets nowhere at Westminster, but achieves a lot of what it wants in Brussels. Maybe it is where the future lies, after all. It certainly will be, if we can’t win an election soon.
A brief meeting with Klaus Hänsch, President of the Parliament, who was at pains to assure us that the future lay in redistributing power between the Euro Parliament and the Commission and not in extracting more power from national parliaments.
I have been haunted all day by the ferry disaster. I find myself thinking, as I often do at times of disaster, supposing it happened to us. What must it be like to be confronted by your children screaming ‘Daddy, Daddy, help me’ and being able to do nothing? The only thing more terrible than dying in such circumstances, would be to survive alone.
Wednesday, 28 September
Strasbourg
Meetings with Bruce Millan, who is on the point of retiring after five years as an EC commissioner, and Pauline Green, leader of the socialist group in the European Parliament. Bruce was fairly downbeat. The Treaty, he said, was basically a free-market treaty. There were few socialist commissioners (although this situation will improve after the Scandinavians and Austria come aboard). At present there are sixteen commissioners, some of whom slavishly follow the line of their government, despite taking an oath of impartiality. After the new entrants had signed up, there would be twenty-one, each with his own cabinet of six officials. It was going to be very hard to find work for them all. At the moment, since the Commission was coming to the end of its term, there was not much political will. It is hard to get agreement on difficult issues.
Several important matters were being dodged. No one was giving much thought to the budgetary and structural consequences of bringing in Hungary and Poland. Likewise the growing concentration of media ownership. There is an Italian in charge of looking at that, which might explain why. As for legislation, the situation was chaotic. ‘There are seven different procedures,’ Bruce said, ‘and even after five and a half years I don’t understand them.’
Tony Blair and his family have been staying with Alan Haworth* at his house in southern France. Alan told me that Tony had recently dined with Murdoch, but he didn’t know what had been discussed. I am not shocked by this. In his place I would do the same: accept his invitations, listen carefully to what he had to say, nod in all the right places – and strike with deadly force during my first week in office. I said that, although we stood a good chance of forming a government after the election, it was not a foregone conclusion and we were unlikely to have a majority of more than minus five to plus five. Alan said, ‘That’s Tony’s assessment, too.’
Monday, 3 October
Labour Party Conference, Blackpool
A debate on the minimum wage. A lot of posturing about the rate at which it should be set. I would rather start low and phase it in. If it starts at a rate which is unsustainable I shall have sacked workers from Dewhirst’s* banging on my door demanding to know why we have priced them out of their jobs.
Tuesday, 4 October
Blackpool
Awoke to see Tony Benn on television saying with approval that the Labour Party hasn’t changed. If that’s true, we are doomed. Happily, the tabloids are preoccupied with a book about an ex-army officer who claims to have had an affair with Diana.† That should keep them off our backs for a day or two.
Blair’s first speech as leader. He entered to some rather naff music and a synthetic standing ovation. The speech was generally excellent. The best I can recall from a leader in twenty-four years of conferences, but it was ruined by a bombshell at the end. He wants to rewrite Clause IV. How can he be so foolish? It means we are destined to spend the next twelve months navel-gazing instead of addressing the nation. It will dominate next year’s conference as well as this. The hacks loved it. They see another year of fratricide ahead.
Anne Clwyd told me that a Sunday newspaper in Wales carried a report last week suggesting that Peter Mandelson was drawing up a list of her defects with a view to keeping her out of the Shadow Cabinet. She has confronted him, but needless to say he denies all.
Predictably, Blair’s plan to ditch Clause IV dominates the television news. Mandelson is everywhere. At the crucial point both the early TV news bulletins cut to him applauding vigorously. In the evening I went along to the Tribune Rally in the Spanish Room, which was overflowing. As I entered I was pounced upon by News at Ten. What did I think of Tony’s plan to do away with Clause IV? I refused to play. I guess we’re in for a lot of this nonsense over the next year or so. It will require great restraint.
Later, at the Northern Region do in the Blackpool Trades Club, Mo Mowlam recounted how Mandelson, who was sitting next to her during Tony’s speech, in the seats reserved for members of the Shadow Cabinet, had just walked up, peeled off the label and sat down. The man’s arrogance is astounding. Mo also told me that she didn’t know Mandelson had been advising Tony during the leadership campaign until she read about it in the papers. Incredible, considering that she was one of his campaign team. She also said that she had warned Blair that his association with Mandelson was doing him no good in the parliamentary party. Derek Foster said he gave Tony a similar warning, but he’s obviously taking no notice. Derek agrees that this Clause IV business is a mistake and suspects Jack Straw had something to do with it. Well, it’s too late now. All we can do is try to limit the damage.
Tony and Cherie put in a brief appearance at the Northern do, in a whirl of television cameras and groupies. Poor Cherie looks very tense and awkward, trailing around after her man. I asked how she was coping. She replied, ‘What I dislike most is having to keep my mouth shut.’
Wednesday, 5 October
Blackpool
A wonderful piece of anti-Mandelson invective from Ken Livingstone in today’s Independent. Apparently Peter had described Ken as ‘the enemy’ on a radio programme yesterday. Asked to comment, Ken replied: ‘There must be something really tragic that happened to him in his childhood, but I am so used to his views that I am prepared to forgive him his bitter little asides and I hope he will get better soon. The alternative is that he is a Martian sent to the planet to exterminate all forms of life on Earth. But I take a charitable view.’
The media are already formulating new demands now that Clause IV is to be disposed of. Blair was asked on TV this morning if he intended to change the name of the Labour Party. Naturally he denied all, but who knows?
At lunchtime I went to hear the Guardian financial journalist Will Hutton speak at a fringe meeting on the media. He said there must be no compromise with Murdoch, but we shouldn’t demonise him. Murdoch is paying virtually no corporation tax. He recommends: (1) A thorough review of the tax status of the Murdoch empire in collaboration with the Australians and American revenue authorities who are also interested. (2) Tighter criteria for the Monopolies and Mergers Commission before making any new referrals. (3) Sticking to the existing rules on cross-ownership (which is interesting, considering that the board of the Guardian are among those pressing for the rules to be relaxed). (4) Enforcing existing quotas for TV imports. (5) Limits on the amount of advertising broadcast per hour. (6) A review of auditing procedures for big corporations with a view to tightening them.
Afterwards I dropped in on the BBC lunch at the Imperial and had a pleasant chat with John Humphrys. The Corporation, he says, is not iconoclastic enough – ‘It’s not okay until someone with a title says it.’ He said there had been a big increase in ‘guidance’ from above during recent years. Especially on royal stories. ‘Ten years ago, when the fairy tale was still intact, we were expected to include a royal story in every bulletin. Now the guidance is that we don’t use royal stories unless everyone else is going with it.’ He said, ‘I went in the other day at 4 a.m. and asked, “Has the word come down on the Hewitt book?” Sure enough, it had. We were not to discuss it. There is now guidance on 100 issues on which there didn’t use to be.’ Humphrys said that in his view broadcasters shouldn’t accept gongs. Robin Day had been wrong to do so. He confirmed that Mandelson had been acting for Blair throughout the leadership campaign. We also talked about sound bites. He said the average sound bite on American television news was down to six seconds or eighteen words. On the BBC, ‘We start getting jittery at twenty seconds.’
A resolution endorsing Clause IV was narrowly carried against the advice of the platform. A shot across the bows for our new masters. The spin doctors are already saying that it won’t make the blindest bit of difference and I am sure it won’t. Blair will get his way, but only at the price of squeezing a little more spirit out of the party. If we lose the election, this will be seen as the turning point.
I ran into an elderly woman who had been brought up in Sunderland in the 1920s, one of eleven children living in two rooms. They lived mainly on porridge and were always hungry. At fifteen she had gone to London with sixpence in her pocket to work as a servant in the house of the Governor of the Bank of England on Queensgate, Kensington. Her masters, she said, ate seven-course meals which they stretched out for hours – ‘because they were so bored’. She now lives in Richmond, North Yorkshire, and her children have done well. A useful reminder of how things used to be.
Monday, 10 October
Sunderland
To St Anthony’s to address sixth formers. One girl asked if it was ever right to break the law. I said yes, if it was an unjust law and you were prepared to take the consequences. I mentioned the Tolpuddle martyrs, but I should have referred to the suffragettes. Another asked whether tax would increase under a Labour government. I said yes, for the best off. She asked me who the best off were and I gave a long and not very clear answer. I am beginning to sound like Gordon Brown.
Thursday, 13 October
This afternoon a meeting with shop stewards from clothing factories in and around Sunderland. Women from a factory at Seaham said a climate of fear prevails among employees with less than two years’ service. Up to that time they can be dismissed at whim without any recourse to a tribunal (the deadline used to be six months until the Tories changed it, first to one year and now to two years). As the two-year deadline approached, some women became nervous wrecks, wondering whether they would have a job the next day. They dare not take a day off through sickness for fear of providing management with an excuse for dismissal. The union official responsible for the textile industry said that reducing the deadline for access to employment tribunals was the single most useful reform a Labour government could make. I came away refreshed. It is always good to meet the people at the sharp end rather than the theorists and spin doctors.
Tuesday, 18 October
Frantic lobbying for the Shadow Cabinet election. Every post brings a new batch of begging letters from hopefuls. It is impossible to get from the door of the Tea Room to the counter without being nobbled. I have adopted a lofty posture – asking no one to vote for me and making no promises. My vote is likely to go down this year, the price of voting for Tony Blair.
Robin Cook joined me at lunch. I told him that he was my – and many other people’s – candidate for Shadow Chancellor, but he said there was no chance of Gordon being shifted. If he can’t be Shadow Chancellor, he would prefer to hang on to the Trade and Industry portfolio. I said it was rumoured that he might be shifted to Foreign Affairs. He replied, ‘I am absolutely uninterested in being Shadow Foreign Secretary.’
I chaired a meeting of the Civil Liberties Group at lunchtime. Mike O’Brien said that Michael Howard had recently told a private meeting of Police Federation officials that a tribunal to deal with miscarriages of justice will only be introduced this session if he comes under sufficient pressure.
Wednesday, 19 October
Tony Blair addressed the parliamentary party. He began with an absolutely clear statement of what we stand for, and then delivered a little homily on how hard we all need to work to win. ‘Losing is the greatest betrayal.’ He promised to run an ‘inclusive’ regime without cliques or cabals. The quid pro quo, he said, was mutual support and discipline. All good stuff. A stark contrast to Kinnock’s mixture of threats, waffle and rant, but I am just a little sceptical as to how inclusive the new regime will be. Time will tell.
The Shadow Cabinet results were announced at 8.30. Robin Cook topped the poll, followed by Margaret Beckett and Gordon Brown. I received fifty-nine votes, ten down on last year, but respectable for a balding, middle-aged, middle-class left-wing male. Harry Barnes pointed out I was highest of the non-office holders.
Thursday, 20 October
The Guardian is running a big story alleging that two ministers – Tim Smith and Neil Hamilton – took money from the Al Fayeds which they neglected to declare. Smith has resigned; Hamilton is staying put and suing. The sleaze factor dominated PM’s Questions and Blair was on top form. The new Shadow Cabinet was announced in the evening. Gordon, needless to say, remains as Chancellor and Robin becomes Shadow Foreign Secretary (so much for his protestations that he was entirely uninterested).
To the Reform Club for a party to celebrate Alastair Campbell’s departure from Today newspaper. Everyone who was anyone was there, even old Jim Callaghan. Clare Short agrees that it is a mistake to move Robin away from economic policy. ‘Gordon’s fingerprints are all over it,’ she said. ‘Tony thinks he’s in Gordon’s debt. He’s not, but he doesn’t know it.’ She also said that she had warned Tony about Mandelson. She must be the tenth person who claims to have done that. She added that, despite his many obvious qualities, Tony is indecisive and that’s why he heeds Peter.
Caught the 22.00 train north, getting home around 1.30 a.m.
At lunchtime, Bill Etherington and I addressed a demonstration of NHS workers at the gate of the General Hospital. A couple of domestic workers from Ryhope Hospital told me that their jobs had been put out to tender. They’d won them back by agreeing to lower pay and fewer hours. They’d been assured that their jobs were safe, at least until Ryhope closes in four years’ time. Now they have been told that they will have to go out to tender again. What a mess our masters are making of people’s lives. And how typical that they always pick on the lowliest to try out their half-baked economic theories.
Tuesday, 25 October
At lunch I shared a table with Charles Kennedy who told a hilarious tale about Roy Hattersley. Apparently Roy was visiting New York where Ned Sherrin had fixed him up an appointment with Stephen Sondheim, of whom Hattersley is an admirer. At the appointed hour Roy turned up at a lavish mansion in New York. The door was answered by a maid who showed him into a huge living room, gave him a drink and said that Mr Sondheim would be down shortly. The best part of an hour went by, but there was no sign of either the maid or Sondheim. Roy, becoming annoyed, scribbled a note saying that he had to leave and headed for the hall. As he did so, a door opened upstairs and the man himself leaned over the banister. ‘If Hattersley doesn’t show up soon, we’ll have to go ahead with the audition.’
Blair is now appointing the junior spokesmen and all around there are urgent little groups of hopefuls awaiting the call. Ann Clwyd, who has been runner-up in the Shadow Cabinet elections for the last two years, was first offered a lowly post which she sensibly rejected. Then he came back and offered her a junior post in the Foreign Office team and she rejected that, too.
The big news is that Major has set up an inquiry under Lord Justice Nolan into the business interests of MPs. Neil Hamilton (who is, with supreme irony, the minister in charge of business ethics at the DTI) has resigned as a result of the allegations made by Al Fayed. He has gone with particular ill grace. The argument seems to be about whether or not he should have registered a free stay at the Ritz Hotel in Paris (owned by the Al Fayeds) at which he ran up a hefty bill. The more interesting question is, what was doing there in the first place?
I walked to the bus stop with Derek Fatchett, who was very scathing about the Shadow Cabinet appointments. He says that anyone who has any different ideas from Gordon has been moved out of economic policy. Dealing with Gordon was the first big test of Tony’s leadership and he’s failed miserably. He added that Margaret Beckett should have been treated with more respect and given one of the big jobs. ‘The trouble with Tony,’ he said, ‘is that, faced with pressure, he backs down.’
Wednesday, 26 October
With Bruce Grocott to lunch at the ITV network centre. Bruce has just been appointed Blair’s Parliamentary Private Secretary – just about the most sensible of the new appointments. He and I have a common interest in the media – and in particular persuading our masters to do something about Murdoch. We dined with Andrew Quinn and Stuart Prebble who were at pains to assure us that, far from having declined, the quality of commercial television was as high as ever. Stuart, who is in charge of factual programmes, insisted that there were more than ever – although a little probing revealed that the definition of ‘factual’ includes such in-depth analysis as Hollywood Women. Domestic content was 65 per cent (although Murdoch’s Sky TV is exempt). They are still anxious to get the News at Ten out of the way to make way for more junk movies at prime time. Channel Four was plunging down-market, only 40 per cent of its programmes were original. Bruce remarked that so far as he could see the Broadcasting Act had led to a lot of people being made redundant and a handful of people becoming very rich. No one contradicted him.
To the Home Affairs Committee where we discussed our future programme. The clerk has prepared a draft report on organised crime which confirms that we have absolutely no original thoughts on the subject. Once again I suggested that we should draw a line under it, but the Tories seem keen to press on. The reason, it soon became apparent, is because it provides a convenient alibi for a freebie. Ivan Lawrence told us he has wangled £319,000 from the Liaison Committee to fund a fact-finding mission to The Hague, Bonn and Rome. A complete waste of public money. Ironic, considering that the Tories are always accusing Labour of profligacy. They’re in for a bad surprise. Steve Byers said he wasn’t going. Gerry Bermingham won’t be interested. My inclination is not to go either. In which case they’ll have no one to pair with, unless they go in the recess, which they most certainly won’t want to do. Ivan mentioned that the newly formed select committee on Northern Ireland had received approval for a trip to Korea at a cost of £40,000. If nothing else, they deserve a prize for ingenuity.
Monday, 31 October
Peter Mandelson has been appointed a whip. As Brian Sedgemore remarked, ‘It shows that Blair’s got bottle. He’s taken on the whole parliamentary party.’
Tuesday, 1 November
Jack Straw, Shadow Home Secretary, came to the Civil Liberties Group at lunchtime. I pressed him on disclosure for Freemasons and he was in favour. I shall hold him to that.
A bizarre row with Ray Powell (the whip responsible for the allocation of offices) about Bob Cryer’s old room. A room with a window is my only remaining political ambition and Bob’s has been vacant for months. I first dropped Ray a note on the subject before the summer recess and he told me that Mildred Gordon needed it for health reasons. I was surprised to find, when Parliament returned in October, that Mildred was still in her old office and, when I inquired, her secretary told me that she had turned it down. Back to Ray, who says there are others, more senior than I, who qualify. Name one, I said, and he named someone who was elected four years after me. Then he mentioned Terry Lewis, who already has an office with a window, larger than Bob’s. Finally, he blurted the truth. It is going to James Kilfedder, a pleasant old Independent Unionist. I pointed out that Kilfedder already has the office next to Bob’s. Ray replied that he needs a second one.
‘Why?’
‘Because he is the leader of his party.’
‘But Ray, he is the only member of his party.’
I suggested that, if Kilfedder needs a second office (and I can’t for the life of me see why he should), then he can have mine – the one without a window. In any case, Kilfedder is for all practical purposes a Tory; I naively thought that Ray was supposed to be representing the Labour interest. Ray then started babbling about it all being part of some complex deal which will lead to a suite of offices at One Parliament Street being put at Ray’s disposal. I can’t make head or tail of it. I only know that it stinks.
Wednesday, 2 November
At the House we were discussing whether to refer to the Privileges Committee Guardian editor Peter Preston’s foolish forgery on House of Commons notepaper, used to obtain a copy of Jonathan Aitken’s bill for his stay at the Ritz in Paris. The Tories see it as a lifeline and have seized eagerly upon it. They were virulent in their denunciations. Julian Brazier shouted out that it was ‘wickedness’. I said to him afterwards that he wouldn’t recognise wickedness if it hit him in the face. What a load of Pharisees. It could still all blow up in their faces. Preston is asking the Privileges Committee to hear his case in public, which they won’t be keen on. An amusing exchange with Roger Gale, who was huffing and puffing about the wickedness of the Guardian. ‘The honourable gentleman, like me, is a journalist by profession,’ I said. ‘Isn’t he even mildly curious to know what the Minister of Defence Procurement was doing in an hotel in Paris at the same time as three Saudi arms dealers?’ Needless to say he wasn’t.
When I referred to our both being journalists someone on our side called out, ‘He’s from a different school.’ Whereupon Lady Olga Maitland, who is not terribly bright, was heard to say, ‘What’s his school got to do with it?’
No one believes Aitken and a number of Tories are saying so privately.
On the train this evening, my wallet was stolen.
Thursday, 3 November
A message on the office answerphone from British Rail at Newcastle to say that my wallet, minus the cash, but with everything else intact had been found when the train was cleaned and was in Lost Property. I went there at lunchtime and they charged me £3 to retrieve it, which I thought was a bit rich. Later a British Rail policeman rang. After he had noted the details he said, ‘How’s the campaign against freemasonry going? You’ve got a lot of support among the police, but they wouldn’t dare put pen to paper.’ He said that freemasonry wasn’t too bad in Newcastle, but it was a problem in many police forces. He added that his neighbour was a Northumbria Ambulance Service officer. ‘He’s not a Mason, but he keeps getting notes through the door.’
Wednesday, 9 November
The mid-term elections in the USA have gone badly for Clinton. Perhaps we shall hear a little less from the New Labour modernisers about learning from the Democratic Party. Elections in the US are a dismal affair with each candidate stooping lower and lower in pursuit of votes from a public which, collectively, is all but fascist. In Texas and Florida they are vying with each other over the number of death warrants they will sign. I heard the other day that someone from the Labour Party has been over there learning about negative campaigning. Unhappily, it seems to work. Fortunately we’ve got two things going for us – strict limits on spending (at least at local level) and a ban on politicians buying airtime on TV.
I have written to Lord Justice Nolan enclosing the minority report which I drafted for the select committee on party funding and suggesting some areas into which he might like to inquire. I also wrote to the director general of the Inland Revenue suggesting he investigate a little scam reported in the Independent on Tuesday where a Tory front organisation called the Blaby Industrial Council is holding a £150-a-head dinner to raise funds for the Tories. Participants have been told it will be billed as a budget seminar so they can claim it against tax. Finally, I faxed a note to Paul Nicholson seeking his assurance that the Northern Industrialists Association, another Tory front which is holding a similar dinner this evening in Newcastle, will not be advising members to claim tax relief à la Blaby. I obviously touched a raw nerve. A reply containing his ‘absolute assurance’ came back within ten minutes.
Monday, 14 November
A call from Frank Dobson. He has persuaded Tony Blair to make a serious push on reform of party funding and is setting up a small team for that purpose. Would I like to join? You bet.
Wednesday, 16 November
To London on the 10.46. On the way down I read that the Queen’s Speech would contain proposals for the long-promised Criminal Cases Review Authority, but in the event there was no mention of it. Only a reference to ‘further measures of law reform’. It wasn’t until John Major spelled it out towards the end of his speech that it became clear that there will be a review body. Major said it would be ‘independent of the government and the courts’, but will it be independent of the police? That’s what I want to know.
The select committee commenced an inquiry into the private security industry which is full of cowboys and criminals. Anyone can buy a dog and an old van and call himself a security guard. We began by interviewing the employers. Interestingly, they want government regulation, which is not what the government wants to hear. I managed to squeeze out of the witnesses what they paid their employees. It’s as low as £2.25 an hour – and these are the good guys. They were apologetic, but excused themselves on the ground that they were being undercut by cowboys. ‘In that case,’ I said, ‘a national minimum wage would be beneficial to good employers like you.’ Needless to say they didn’t think so, but the logic is inescapable.
Thursday, 17 November
To a meeting with Tony Blair at his request. The first time I had been in the Leader’s office since I interviewed Michael Foot for Tribune twelve years ago and he abruptly terminated the interview when the questions got too sticky. Would I accept a front-bench job? I had thought the recent appointments were with us for the duration, but apparently not. He talked of ‘pepping up’ the front bench and ‘giving it a radical edge’. An odd conversation to be having only two weeks after he had appointed his team. He said he wanted to add some ‘sensible radicals’. So many of the left, he said, are …
‘Impossibilists,’ I suggested.
‘I was going to say, conservative. Their idea of being radical is to defend the status quo.’ A fair point when you think about it. So many of my Campaign Group colleagues merely want to revert to the status quo ante. Repeal all Tory trade union laws, throw out all the changes in the NHS without pausing to consider whether any of them have merit.
It’s clear that Tony was railroaded into reappointing a lot of people he didn’t want. (Anji Hunter, his assistant, told me a while ago that the reshuffle process had been an horrendous ordeal.)
He asked what jobs I was interested in and I listed half a dozen – Heritage (if we are intending to do anything about media ownership), Home Office, Foreign Office, Agriculture (with responsibility for farm animal welfare – that surprised him). Above all, I said, I was interested in addressing the power structure.
We talked about his dinner with Murdoch who, apparently, hadn’t tried to sound him out on our plans. Tony said he had the impression that these days Murdoch’s principal interests were in Asia. ‘If he thinks we are going to win, he will go easy on us, but if he thought we could lose, he would turn on us.’ He added, ‘If the press misbehave badly during the election campaign, I will stop everything for two days and we will have a debate about what they are up to, who owns them, the lot.’
‘Did you say that to Murdoch?’
‘Not in so many words.’
I said that, while I accepted that we should do nothing to alienate the media in advance, if we wanted to survive, we would have to strike with deadly force soon after we took power. He was non-committal but had clearly thought about it, which is more than can be said for any other Labour leader in my lifetime.
We talked about doing away with hereditary peers – something he has clearly set his sights on – he was apologetic about the recent nominations to the Intelligence Services Committee. ‘Unfortunate’ was the word he used. He hinted that there were factors beyond his control, a reference no doubt to the Whips Office. I said that, if the war in Ireland was over, there was scope for saving some public money. Perhaps by amalgamating MI5 and MI6 (now there’s a job I would enjoy). He said, ‘You try telling them that’ (nothing would give me greater pleasure).
I was with him for about twenty-five minutes. For the last ten, a young woman was making him up for a television interview. At the end he said to me, ‘So you’ve no objection in principle to going on the front bench.’
‘Not at all,’ said I. ‘If something’s about to change for the better, I would like to play a part.’
‘It may all end in tears and disillusion.’
‘There’s no reason it should.’
‘My absolute priority is to win. I know that sounds unprincipled, but I just see it as my role in life.’
Later, a talk with Alan Milburn who had been hoping to get on the front bench this time. He said that Tony had taken him aside and told him that there would be another opportunity before the election. He said that Tony had completely lost control of the reshuffle – and just given up on most of the junior appointments.
The debate on the Home Affairs section of the Queen’s Speech was thinly attended, which meant that I was called reasonably early (i.e. after only two and a half hours). I got stuck in on the proposed review body for alleged miscarriages of justice. It’s clear that Howard, despite all the advice to the contrary, is intending to leave investigations in the hands of the police, which will make it as useless as the Police Complaints Authority.
Afterwards a Tory member said that he agreed with everything I had said about the police. Seven years practising at the criminal Bar had taught him they were not to be trusted. He must be at least the thirtieth Tory to say something similar in private during the last five years. A pity they can’t bring themselves to say it out loud.
Saturday, 19 November
The first National Lottery is drawn today. The tabloids have been full of lottery fever all week. I can’t say I share their enthusiasm, but all the same I went to the post office and purchased three tickets. There was a long queue. The jackpot is said to be £7 million. If we win, the first person to benefit will be poor Mr Le Qua* and his family. After that I will buy a walled garden and give most of the rest to charity. This is not, however, a dilemma with which I am likely to have to wrestle. The odds against winning are about fifty million to one.
Monday, 21 November
A message from Mum to say that Terence died at about eleven o’clock last night.
One of the whips told me that there are forty or fifty Labour members who can’t be relied upon to turn up regularly and they have to be kept sweet by being given foreign trips, good offices and so on. The worst offenders, he says, are those who are not standing again.
Thursday, 24 November
I showed a group of kids from a secondary school in one of the poorer parts of Sunderland around the House. Afterwards we had a short question-and-answer session. The examination league tables were published this week and their school is once again the lowest in Sunderland and, perhaps, in the country. They asked what Labour would do to help them find jobs and I waffled on about increasing investment and releasing capital receipts to boost public housing development. The sad truth is that, for many of them, it is too late.
In the evening I spent an hour at a reception in the Locarno Room at the Foreign Office given by Alastair Goodlad. Alan Howarth, a very decent Tory, lamented Foreign Office cynicism about the arms trade. He said, ‘At home Foreign Office civil servants are perfectly civilised people who tend their gardens, play in string quartets and so on, but when they come to work they abandon any sense of morality and set about protecting the balance of payments by any means possible.’ He added that the arms trade was not only wrong, but had no future. He wondered if a Labour government would be any different. I wonder, too.
An interesting talk with a senior colleague in the Tea Room. She said that before the last election John Major had sent the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Robin Butler, to address the Shadow Cabinet. She was surprised and embarrassed by the deferential tone of many of her colleagues’ questions. She added, ‘They’ll have circles run around them in government.’ We talked about Gordon. She agreed he is a problem. So hyped up that he will burn out. His fingernails are bitten to the quick. She added that it was a mistake to move Robin (just about everyone thinks that).
Ngoc has told Sarah that Uncle Terence is dead. ‘He has gone to heaven because he was very old and ill.’ What a useful concept heaven is for explaining death to children.
‘Did they put him in a box?’
‘Yes’.
‘And did they put the lid on?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because that’s what happens when people die.’
Tuesday, 29 November
Budget Day. I didn’t go in since my presence or absence won’t make the blindest bit of difference. Instead I went to University College at Euston to talk to the Law Society on miscarriages of justice. About fifty people attended including some members of staff and afterwards there was a good discussion. I sold five copies of Error of Judgement, which, apart from two or three on my shelves, are the last I possess. About 64,000 copies were printed and they are all gone.
Wednesday, 30 November
I caught the 20.00 from Kings Cross and was home by midnight. The Director of Public Prosecutions, Barbara Mills, and several senior officials were on the train and we talked for about half an hour. I said the review authority would be useless if it didn’t have power to conduct its own investigations, but I am not sure she took the point even though I laid it on with a shovel. She asked whether I thought it should have the power to examine evidence that would otherwise be inadmissible and I said it should. I asked about Masons and she said she had never come across them and that they certainly weren’t a problem in her organisation which, in any case, was 60 per cent female. A pleasant, bright woman, but naive.
Thursday, 1 December
Sunderland
A day in the office wading through piles of casework. Also, a desperate plea from an Englishwoman in Missouri who has married a man on death row who is due to be executed next Wednesday. I faxed a letter to the governor, but I don’t hold out much hope. In five years of writing appeals on the death penalty to American politicians, I have never even had an acknowledgement. We rang the poor woman and she said she had been to the prison this morning and they were already rehearsing the execution.
It is reported today that Tony Blair is sending his son to an opted-out school. The Tories are cock-a-hoop. A big row brewing.
Friday, 2 December
At the management committee this evening, a huge row about Blair’s son. Council leader Bryn Sidaway said it is going to put the council in a very difficult position. So far, he had managed to persuade the Catholic schools to stay with the local authority, but that would obviously be more difficult in the future. No one came to Tony’s defence. It was agreed to write expressing concern.
Sunday 4 December
This evening on television, a shocking report by Julian Pettifer from Vladivostok, home of the Russian Pacific Fleet. The harbour is full of rusting nuclear submarines, leaking radiation. The old reactors and much else besides are being dumped into the Sea of Japan. Meanwhile, Japanese logging companies, having worked their way through the forests of Thailand and Indonesia, have begun demolishing the Siberian forests. What a mess we are in. It can only be a matter of time before the chickens come home to roost.
Great excitement this evening. The government was defeated by eight votes over increasing VAT on fuel. Six Tories voted with us. About the same number abstained and, for once, all the Ulster Unionists deserted the government. Much talk about this being the beginning of the end, but I am not so sure. There are two years to go yet until the election and they will certainly hang on until then. By that time, VAT on fuel will be forgotten – just like poll tax.
Wednesday, 7 December
At the select committee we took evidence from the police on the private security industry. Like everyone else we have interviewed so far, they were in favour of statutory regulation. John Stevens, the Chief Constable of Northumberland, was the chief police witness. Afterwards, I bent his ear about a remarkable case brought to me recently by a constituent who apparently got word that he was going to be fitted up by the local police, so he took the precaution of filing a letter with his solicitor and carrying a copy with him. Sure enough, he found himself being trailed, stopped, breathalysed and harassed. When he showed the officers who had stopped him the letter he had filed, they became agitated. A murky business. Everyone involved, including the victim, seems to be a Mason. I had written to John Stevens, but he had not seen my letter. I asked him to take a personal interest, and he promised to do so.
A silly row at the Campaign Group in the evening. Lynne Jones was in the chair and Dennis Skinner was giving his report on the National Executive Committee. As usual, he was making a meal of it, and Lynne attempted to hurry him (the meeting had been going nearly two hours), and Dennis threw a tantrum. Lynne, who is fearless, remained calm, but Dennis kept on about it. As ever, when Dennis throws a wobbly, everyone else kept quiet. One or two even intervened on his side. I was the only one who spoke up for Lynne. Later, in the Tea Room, I told him he had behaved badly and he started shouting at me. Tony Benn said afterwards that you can’t have a relationship with Dennis until you have had a row with him.
Bruce Grocott and I had a quiet talk with Shadow Heritage Secretary, Chris Smith, about the media. He is still feeling his way and doesn’t seem to have come to any firm conclusions yet, but we pressed upon him the need to have a plan for dealing with Murdoch, Michael Green et al. I floated my one daily, one Sunday per proprietor scheme and stressed the need to limit cross-media ownership – including satellite. We pointed out that Carlton and Granada already had 36 per cent apiece of ITN. Chris was non-committal, although he did say that he was at least as worried about Michael Green as Murdoch. He also said he proposed to talk in generalities until after the election. After which, I suggested, he could then amaze everyone by doing more rather than less than we implied we would. Chris will be a much better Heritage Secretary than Mo. At least he doesn’t appear to be dazzled by all that information superhighway nonsense.
At lunch in the Strangers’ Cafeteria, I sat at the same table as Tom King, who is the Tory rep on the Nolan Committee. He said that my letter about Masons had prompted a furious reply from Commander Higham, Secretary of Grand Lodge. To my surprise, he was hostile to the Masons. He mentioned Calvi, the Italian banker found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge, and seemed amenable to the idea of doing away with the secrecy around the Masons. A most unlikely ally.
I stayed long enough to hear Ken Clarke’s emergency mini budget to make up for the other night’s defeat on VAT on fuel. He has decided to clobber drinkers, drivers and smokers, which is fine by me. Considering the hole he had to dig himself out of, Clarke was on excellent form. Gordon was as gloomy and doom-laden as ever. Give me Clarke any day. He actually looked as though he was enjoying himself, rarely glancing at his notes, casually leaning on the Dispatch Box, brazenly denouncing Gordon for our complete absence of an economic policy. He is undoubtedly the Tories’ greatest asset in Parliament. How stupid of us not to oppose him with our best performer, Robin Cook.
I wonder whether we would have been better off losing the vote on VAT? Had it been implemented, it would have hung around Tory necks for years to come, but without it, we shall have to look for something else to pin on them and that may not be easy. ‘You’ve shot your fox,’ Tom King said to me at lunch. John Fraser used the same expression two hours’ later. They may well be right. We can no longer rely on VAT to camouflage the fact that we don’t have any economic policy.
Home on the 17.00. In the newspaper on the way back, there was a one-line report saying that a man and a woman had been stoned to death in Iran yesterday.
Saturday, 10 December
Sunderland
Passed the day in the garden, spreading compost and horse manure. A pleasant stink pervades.
Thursday, 15 December
I was at the House by 8 a.m. to wait in the Public Bill Office for a chance to table a ten-minute-rule Bill – aimed at breaking up media monopolies. While waiting, I chatted to Tessa Jowell, one of the brightest of the new London MPs and a keen Blairista. She said that most of Tony’s supporters had voted for him because they believed he was a winner and, if he turned out not to be, his support would swiftly melt away. We talked about education. She said Tony’s decision to send his son to an opted-out school eight miles from home was not controversial among most of her electorate. Education in parts of Southwark was in a state of collapse. Dulwich, her constituency, is full of private schools and most of the middle classes have long since evacuated their children. She wants to see inner-city schools providing breakfast for the poorest children and homework clubs for those whose home environment doesn’t enable them to do homework. She also wants to see independent schools encouraged to open their facilities to local state schools – which she says already happens in Dulwich. If they don’t, she says, we should take away their charitable status. John Major seemed rattled at Question Time. Several people rubbed his nose in the announcement by British Gas that they are cutting the salaries of their salesroom staff – three weeks after awarding their chairman a whopping 75 per cent increase. The timing is impeccable, on the day of the by-election at Dudley.
Friday, 16 December
A swing of 29 per cent to Labour at Dudley. A catastrophic result for the Tories. Beware of triumphalism, however. Two years into a Labour government, it will happen to us. The electorate is in a mean and greedy frame of mind. The relentless pursuit of self-interest, unleashed by the Thatcher decade, has uncorked all sorts of ugly forces which no one can satisfy.
Monday, 19 December
A chat with Tony Benn, Joan Lestor and Derek Foster in the Tea Room. Derek said he had just spent half an hour telling Tony Blair that his decision to send his son to an opted-out school was a mistake. They took the same view of the plan to rewrite Clause IV. Tony Benn said that Gaitskell had tried it in 1960 and backed off. Instead, he had accepted a compromise where Clause IV was retained and a statement ‘clarifying’ it was issued. Within a few weeks, the statement had been forgotten. Apparently, a similar solution had been suggested to Tony Blair, but he is having none of it. Joan said she was going to see if she could persuade him.
Saturday, 24 December
Sarah wrote a note to Santa Claus to say that she would be staying with her aunty Liz and I went out to post it. On the way to the post box I was waylaid by a woman who owns a number of properties in the area, several of which have recently been burgled. What, she demanded, was I going to do about it? I pointed out that, having been burgled on many occasions, I was as keen as she that something should be done. What did she have in mind? ‘It’s up to you, you’re the government.’ I pointed out as gently as I could that, on the contrary, I was the Opposition. Government for the last fifteen years had been in the hands of the Conservative Party – for which, I just restrained myself from saying, she had no doubt voted throughout. What we were now faced with was, to a large extent, the social consequences of fifteen years of Conservative rule to which there were no magic solutions. She continued to rage so I pressed her again about what she wanted done. ‘Capital punishment,’ she said.
‘For thieves?’
‘Well, chop off their hands.’
Debate continued at this level for ten minutes or so. I curtailed it by saying that, if she felt strongly enough to write me a letter, I would be glad to represent her views to the Home Secretary, although I doubt even Michael Howard could be persuaded to start chopping off hands.
Saturday, 31 December
The last day of 1994. The human race is in a worse state now than at any time I can remember. Catastrophe in Africa. A war in Europe for the first time in fifty years. The Soviet Union disintegrating. The Pacific Rim, where, we are assured, the future lies, is in the grip of market forces more virulent and more destructive than any we have so far seen. The planet is being remorselessly looted and polluted. Everywhere rampant market forces have triumphed. Resistance, we are forever being told, is futile. Politicians are losing control over events and, as a result, becoming increasingly discredited.
For the first time we have a Leader of the Labour Party who is younger than I am. Attractive, capable, well motivated, but it remains to be seen where he is taking us. No day seems to pass without news that some old policy or principle has been discarded. I only hope we have something to replace them with and so far that is not at all clear.
No use complaining. I voted for the new order (and there wasn’t anything better on offer). I have signed up for the journey. I shall not jump ship halfway.