House Magazine

What the Hell is going on?  Gordon struts the world stage to great effect but it won`t do him any good at home.  Our Cabinet of Pygmies allows blockages at home, Kindergarten Kids scrawl graffiti everywhere and a Faith Squad of ex-Blairites, worship St.Anctimony.  We should never have allowed Derek Draper back.

It`s all so unlike the Party I remember from our testing time in the Seventies.  Then a battle-hardened party, led by a Cabinet of Giants held to the faith to the bitter end.  Never mind, Gordon.  I`ll continue to advise you.  The unpaid, unseen, power behind the throne.

Friday 20 March          Meeting of 100 fishermen in Grimsby’s Fishing Heritage Centre to tell them about the new compensation scheme which we`ve forced Government to launch after the Ombudsman’s verdict on the weaknesses of the last.  Everyone sober and in good order but even now Government is trying to cheat us by introducing an impossible new condition that fishermen must have served two years in the Cod Wars.  Why do we always get so mean and petty in the last stages of generous compensation deals?  Civilian Prisoners of the Japanese, Equitable Life, Icelandic Fishermen, etc.

Tuesday 24 March       Meeting with the new Icelandic Foreign Minister who turns out to be an old friend.  When I tell him we’re delighted Icelandic vessels have resumed landings in Grimsby after 20 years, he expresses the hope that my wife won`t be going down to the ships for the purpose of prostitution.  Long memories in Iceland.  In the 1983 election Linda was hosed down by dock security at 3.00 am.  They assumed she was a prostitute going down to service Icelandic vessels.  In fact she was waiting for me to get off Grimsby vessels where I was soliciting for votes.  I hoped the incident had been forgotten.  Not in Iceland apparently, but they can`t vote.

Thursday 26 March      By-election for a North East Lincs Council seat.  After desultory canvassing go to Leeds (yet another speeding ticket) for the launch of  The Damned United where me and three gnarled Leeds veterans are the only survivors of the Seventies in an audience of teenaged footballers and news hounds, none of whom I know after thirty years of making new rather than reporting it.  Then back to Grimsby for the count. 

As is now traditional we lose but the Tories and Liberals who run Grimsby have fallen out and spent the entire campaign abusing each other.  Meet the newly selected Tory candidate for Grimsby.  She`s so nice I decide not to ask Damian McBride to check her out.  But a keen, young Gel  dogging my steps for a whole year will be worrying.  It`s never happened before.  The Tories usually select lunatics at the last minute who then disappear.  Even worse, the Grimsby Telegraph is reporting her avidly where they never use any of my eight page press releases.  Indeed, the only time they tell Grismby I exist is when they publish my huge expenses and all the bills for brothels, the Ivy, tea at the Ritz and that nude statue of Linda Lovelace.

Saturday 28 March       After surgery (even more depressing than usual) and a motivational business presentation, off to watch Grimsby Town struggling against relegation.  I`ve sponsored the ball and now my staff tell me I`ve got to pay for it personally because, unlike dirty videos, it`s not a permissible expense.  Fortunately, we win which allows me to sneak out without the usual abuse: “You bring us bad luck”, “Don`t come again”, etc.

Tuesday 3l March         Ports Lunch in Drapers Hall (where Derek runs his Daily Draper website) near the Bank of England which is now sand-bagged with a new minoret so Iman King can attack government borrowing over the loudspeakers.  Outside the Bank comedian, Mike Thomas, holds up a big sign saying “Everything All Right” with a crowd of bankers clustered round to tell him it isn`t.

Inside the lunch my fellow diners warn me they won`t be there next year because John Healey is charging them retrospective business rates they can`t pay.  Try to explain that John`s a nice lad really.  He`s only obeying orders but the Government`s position is insane and promises deep damage to the ports.  It will all end up in the courts and my guess is the port businesses will win.  “There`s nothing we can do” is never a convincing defence for a Government which can do anything when it wants to. 

Come out of the lunch in tears to find Mike Thomas still telling people “Everything`s All Right” and the City police trying to move him on because Mervyn King has told them it isn`t.

Wednesday l April        Lead a huge rebellion against the Government’s proposal to give those who shouldn’t pay retrospective rates eight years not to do so.  Rally five votes including Shona McIsaac who`s not sure how to rebel because she`s never done one before.  I tell her I`ll get her a mention on Derek Draper`s website if she`ll join us.  She does but all the other Labour MPs who represent ports vote for the Government like turkeys for Christmas.   The Tories and gutless Lib Dems sit on their hands.  Never mind.  Five`s a good start.  I can build up from there.

Friday 3 April               Two hours on hospital radio.  The Trust`s Chief Executive assures me that two hours of me will help achieve his target of quicker bed turnover.  Ask for the latest Joan Baez “God is God” which I love, having loved Joan Baez ever since I interviewed her forty years ago.  I continue this pathetic, unrequited love now that she`s given up protest for God but they haven’t got a single Baez track in the archive. Settle for Barry McGuire`s “Eve of Destruction” which sums up my current mood.

Monday 6 April            At last a chance to catch up on the mouldering piles of unanswered mail and emails which have poured in from “Tellthem what you think dot com”.  None have been answered.  Many are incomprehensible.  Call in medical staff to see if the piles harbour C Deficile or MRSA.  They hose them down.

Friday 10 April Arrival of grandchildren to wreck my work schedule.  Decide to walk along the canal to Hebden Bridge and walk ahead with grandson, Red.  He counts obsessively to 7000.  Linda catches up.  “So marvellous to see you bonding.  What have you been talking about?” “7001” says the child and walks doggedly on.  “7002-7003…”

Satuday 11 April          To Leeds Playhouse.  It`s Mrs. Thatcher’s legacy to West Yorkshire because the funds left over when she abolished the metropolitan county were used to build it.  Sadly, by the time she abolished Humberside she`d got wise so nothing was left for Grimsby except debts.  Tonight`s play is J.B. Priestley’s “When We are Married” which I enjoyed, though I`d never realised before that Priestley, once my hero, was making fun of Yorkshire for Southern gits.  The bastard.  The play makes me realise that I grew up in the period when social life, once organised round chapels and a thousand versions of the Messiah at Christmas, was dying.  Everything shifted to the cinema, the radio and the football club.  My parents were chapel.  My youth Methodist.  But by my teens it was all Jazz Clubs, pictures and TV.  The chapel became a carpet warehouse.

Sunday 12 April           Grandchildren show no interest in the Damion Mc Bride scandal which is a shame because in a couple of years they`ll be in their teens and eligible to become Government advisers and part of the children`s crusade.  Put kiddies in power and you get kiddy politics. 

Monday 13 April          The McBride of Frankenstein and the AttackBlog Affair rumbles on.  Should I offer Damian a job as medical adviser on my blog site?  Derek Draper has agreed to be my psychotherapist but so far he`s only made me more depressed, a process compounded by reading AlistairCampbell’s novel which has convinced me that they`re all mad.  To be sane in today`s politics is to be totally impotent.  Which is why Draper is treating me.

Wednesday 15 April     Things have turned very sour very quickly.  Lunchtime drinkers in Grimsby tell me Gordon is useless. Passers-by say they’ll never vote Labour again.  People in pubs say they’re fed up.  What on earth can I reply?  Say “It`ll come right” and they start denouncing MPs` expenses.  “It`s all right for you”.  Say “We`re all doomed” and they shout that it`s my job to do something about it.  “You`re paid enough”.  My only hope is that now the kids` crusade has screwed up, Gordon will see the need for the senior, experienced advisers who he should have brought in years ago.  No names no packdrill, but Tom Watson tells me the announcement could come soon.  I`ll tell Gordon how Jim did it better.

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Now Gordon’s back from bestriding the globe it`s make or break time here at home.  Either he establishes himself as the Pilot who`ll weather The Storm, gives the big spending boost the economy needs and breaks the bottle necks in housing, college and school building, university expansion, industry support and job defence we need or we’ve had it. 

It`s a straight choice between a British Keynesian splurge and an Irish tax and cut option.  With less than a year to go, we can`t carry on drifting towards the “Time for a Change Falls” like a mad scene from Political Academy I, with Derek and Damian paddling forward, Blairites bawling “back”, and Peter handing the Mandy money out in pence and halfpence, while Tories sit on shore giggling and Liberals, as usual, half in and half out of the water, unable to decide whether they`re wet or dry.  Plus me composing my 380<sup>th</sup> letter to Gordon telling him what to do.  I`m beginning to believe Damian never passed the previous 379 on to him.