THE BLAIR AFFAIR
When Mikey was murdered Tony Blair was prime minister. I didn’t know him well, but I had met him a couple of times; the first not long after he became prime minister. Black people all over the country were celebrating fifty years since the arrival of the Empire Windrush – the ship that landed at Tilbury Docks in 1948 carrying the first big group of Caribbean immigrants.
Robin Cook, who was Foreign Secretary at the time of the fifty-year celebrations, had recently told the country that he wanted to bring a bit of colour to the Foreign Office, so as a way of getting the government in on the celebrations he employed a black-run PR company to hold an event at the Foreign Office. That PR company then asked me to perform, and for some strange reason I said yes.
It didn’t happen to me very often, but this was one of those times when I wondered why I’d agreed. First of all I wondered if, in an indirect way, I was working for the government, and secondly the room was full of people who in other circumstances would order that I be removed from the premises. But I had said yes, I was there, and I only had to perform one poem, and that was a piece I’d written about the voyage, called ‘The Men from Jamaica Are Settling Down’.
Robin Cook went on stage after me. I knew him quite well from TV programmes like Question Time. He thanked all the black people in the country for coming over and teaching him how to dance, and bringing curries and culture, and then he told everyone that when he’d become Foreign Secretary he’d promised to bring a little colour into the place, but he didn’t think that would involve performing after Benjamin Zephaniah. He said he thought we’d make a good double act and we should go on tour together. Now none of that is particularly funny, but these government types really laugh at these kinds of things, and laugh they did. ‘Ho, ho, ho, jolly good, Robin, old chap.’
When he left the stage he came over to me. He was one of those people who were constantly looking over the shoulders of the person in front of him to see if there was someone more important to work his way up to. Then he saw Tony Blair, who’d just arrived.
Blair was too late to hear Robin Cook or myself, but Robin’s eyes lit up. ‘We must say hello to Tony,’ he said.
‘Must we?’ I asked.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘He’ll be so pleased to see you.’
Everyone knew about Tony Blair’s plastic smile. Well, I got it full on.
‘I’ve been watching you on television,’ he beamed. ‘My kids love your books, and I can play a bit of reggae on my guitar. We should get together and share some ideas.’
Robin repeated his joke, about the two of us performing as a double act and going on tour, probably thinking that Tony would react like the assembled ladies and gentlemen, but he didn’t. Tony flipped. His plastic smile disappeared; he wagged his finger at Robin and said, angrily, ‘You’ll do no such thing. That’s a ridiculous idea. I need to speak to you. See me in my office in the morning.’
Robin stood as if in shock, and quite a few people heard it. For a moment I wondered if this was some kind of act they were putting on, but when I realised it wasn’t, I actually felt sorry for Robin as he walked away, head hanging down like a naughty schoolboy.
For a while I was really puzzled by this outburst, until a year or so later, when I was in the Seychelles. I had done a couple of performances and was hanging out with the British ambassador (as you do) and I told him the story. ‘I heard about that,’ he said. And he proceeded to explain that it was all to do with Robin Cook being found out for having an affair with his secretary.
The previous Conservative government became known for what some called sleaze, and others called corruption, so when the Labour Party (or New Labour, as it liked to be called then) had got into power they had pledged to get rid of all that sleaze. And they did – for about a week. There was probably lots of bed-jumping going on, but Robin was seen as the first person to bring the party into disrepute. So Tony didn’t want any playing around from his Foreign Secretary. I tried to imagine going on tour with Robin Cook, and it wasn’t happening, but neither was bringing Tony Blair into my band as my guitarist.