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I decided to get away from the constant public adulation of the government "Oh you’re a supporter of Mr Blair. How wonderful. I think he’s doing such a marvellous job" etc by staying in New Zealand after the EFRA Committee left. We’ve been here enquiring into what happens when all subsidies are taken away from farming.
The impression we’ve been given is great improvement ,not many suicides only 800 out of farming and all the remainder benefiting enormously by producing for the consumer not the subsidy generating a great explosion of Kiwi ingenuity as farmers turned to deer, ostriches, emus, cut flowers ("makes me feel effeminate" one complained) wine, dude ranching, ginseng, Nashi, Umiboshi (don’t ask) Kiwi Fruit, anything which sold. So now NZ agriculture is thriving because of the low dollar. Unlike us they run their economy for production not an overvalued currency that kills it.
When the committee has gone I look through the film archive and get a very different picture of mass rallies of angry farmers, eggs thrown at ministers and bloody sheep heads dumped on their door steps. One minister even went round farmer rallies announcing his address and suggesting that farmers should dump not just the head but the whole sheep as he fancied mutton.
Friday 5 April
Get to lovely Lake Taupo on the drive North. Dinner with the constituency MP who’s minister of Tourism and Defence, a combination of bring ’em in and kill ’em at adventure sports and with keep ’em out and go to their country to kill ’em there. He tells me that his office has a red hotline to Australia. This had never been used (probably because the two countries are almost at war) until one night as his staff were going home it rang. Telemarketing
Sunday 7 April
Staying with Jonathan Hunt at Kare Kare for the annual races on the beech where The Piano was filmed. At 6am Jonathan wakens us. The races are cancelled.
Evening. To the airport. Helen Clark is on the same plane going to the Queen Mother’s funeral which at least gets Linda upgraded to first class to talk to her. I sit huddled at the back trying to overhear their discussion on matters of high policy, fashion, retail therapy and probably ,being Helen painting. All I can hear is the loud laughter and giggles though the rest of the cabin seems to be hearing OK judging by the scribbling into note books.
Monday 8 April
To Politicos Literary dinner as one of their most famous authors to sign my book on the Lords. This is now being remaindered for £l though the full price is temporarily restored for the copies I sign. Six. I am the only Labour MP there and really get worried when Gyles Brandreth tells me how nice it must be for me to be among friends for a change. Gyles is brilliant at auctioning small items of military hardware like swords, tanks and missile launchers.
Wednesday l0 April
The launch of Labour Against the Euro Group consisting of some of the finest minds in the PLP plus myself and attended by a large number of journalists eager to detect a party split. There isn’t one of course. Party policy on the Euro is wait and see. We’re for lots of wait and see.
Friday l2 April
To Grimsby Town’s stadium for the unveiling of its new sponsorship deal with Conoco. Everyone is furious with ITV for ratting on its deal. "The Government should make them cough up" is the prevailing opinion among directors and players. Promise to relay their views straight back to Tony. Evening to Gala Bingo to get their views on the Budd report. I’m amazed at how computerised and efficient Bingo has become. It’s as dedicated and serious as an internet café for adults. The old calls "legs eleven" two little ducks 22" have all gone to speed things up.
Saturday 13 April
Surgery followed by Grimsby Town’s crucial match against Burnley. Shona and I are sponsoring the ball, an expensive business but we hope to catch the attention of Alistair Campbell who Shona assures me goes everywhere with Burnley, so that he’ll recommend us for promotion. Am angrily castigated by Shona for giving my tickets to such unworthy souls as councillors and secretaries when she’d wanted me to keep one for Alistair, so I could go down into the stand unobtrusively hunt him out and bring him up to the dining room. I point out that the Burnley stand, Camp X Rated and recognisable by the barbed wire and machine guns is empty. "Go and look just the same" she insists "He’s probably come in disguise".
The match is a triumph for Grimsby Town whose place in the first division is guaranteed. Think I see Alistair Campbell sobbing in a pool of tears as I leave but step over the body asking one of our councillors to report it to the Cleansing Department. Bang go my chances of promotion. Town should have lost to boost my meteoric rise to power.
Monday l5 April
EFRA Committee’s great enquiry I into the fridge mountain. This is a monumental cock up but everyone blames everyone else and as usual the Euro officials sanctimoniously blame everyone except themselves. Michael Meacher does a brilliant job but I am amazed that the British government only discovered that their country was doing a big and profitable trade in reconditioned fridges when the EU stopped it. We are piggy in the middle. The Germans have sanctimoniously implemented it because they make the machinery for taking CHCs out of fridge foam and want everyone forced to buy it. The French have ignored it, as have the Portuguese who pushed it through. We’ve implemented it but can’t fulfil it. Fridges pile up everywhere.
Tuesday l6 April
The culmination of the All Party Photography Groups year the opening of our annual photography exhibition by the Speaker who obligingly points out that one of my pictures of the Rogue’s, sorry Press Gallery, the best and brightest in Parliament and the ones who actually run the country, is illegal.
Kodak stepped down from the sponsorship last year and we were lucky enough to recruit Jessops who’ve done us proud while Lord Allenby has arranged that it can move on to the House of Lords for another fortnight because their Lordships are better photographers than we poor commoners.
Wednesday l7 April
Gordon’s budget is a triumph. Tony sits unhappily next to him like a junior minister listening to the secretary of state. It’s a good budget but far too deflationary for me. We should borrow more and spend more and go for growth because otherwise we’re wasting a great opportunity. A big expansion will bring the pound down and save what’s left of manufacturing. Gordon doesn’t seem to have got my note telling him what to do. Or perhaps Ed Balls couldn’t understand it.
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It’s wonderful to come back to spring. The trouble with being in New Zealand is you don’t notice the seasons good weather just goes on boringly forever. Here you come alive and optimistic with spring. I’m even beginning to think that Labour can go on walking on water forever. When I begin to think that it must surely be the prelude to a fall. |
