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Suddenly my little world as a footsoldier in Tony’s Triumphal Army is transformed. Once a hardworking MP dutifully tramping the Third Way, praising Tony and serving grateful constituents. Now, overnight, an embattled candidate pleading pathetically for votes and filling in time before the "off" with play-way legislation. Which won’t get through before the House is dissolved on 3 April.
So it’s three months of wasting time arguing about foxes, hooligans, Community Health Councils, while really looking outside at a looming election which is beginning to blot out everything in a cacophony of Yah-boo-sucks. Better to stay home in Grimsby than hang round here to vote for legislation that ain’t going to pass. No point in pleasing Tommy MacAvoy now. There’ll be no promotion this side of the Ocean. Bless us all.
It reminds me of my brief and painful parachuting career. Early on in the fall the ground looks a long way away. You’ve a wonderful, serene, feeling, almost a master of the universe until suddenly (as now) the ground begins to rush towards you at breakneck speed. Before you know it, it’s bang; ground, zero. In my case to end up in hospital. In Labour’s, back in power. Hopefully tackling all the things we’ve not done this time. Like being a Labour Party, rather than making the world fit for Polly Toynbee to pontificate in. I hope she’s grateful. My party members and councillors aren’t.
Thursday 14 December.
Steel lunch and Tales of Woe about closures, job losses, and companies running out of cash because the high Pound makes them unprofitable. John Monks of the TUC blames government’s failure to give a clear lead on the Euro: as relevant as putting it down to the colour of Gordon Brown’s underpants. Write to John ("Dear Sir and Brother") to suggest that Euro-loons and those concerned to save manufacturing should work together. Let’s get the Pound down first and argue about the Euro afterwards. No reply.
Wednesday 20 December.
Meet my friend, Jonathan Hunt, Speaker of the NZ Parliament, at the airport. He’s ended the New Zealand Parliamentary session early and I’ve dodged the vote on foxhunting to hear the Huddersfield Choral Society do the Messiah at Huddersfield Town Hall. A magnificent performance in a wonderful setting. Suggest to Jonathan that "We Like Sheep" should be the New Zealand national anthem. He’s nodded off. Jet-lagged. Afterwards several angry letters from animal lovers for deserting the foxes in their hour of need. They only had a majority of 215. My vote could have been crucial. Hallelujah.
Thursday 21 December.
Take Jonathan to Grimsby to greet the natives, meet the Mayor and attend my annual party for those who’ve helped us during the year. He tells everyone what a wonderful job I’ve done for New Zealand. Which doesn’t excite this mass assembly of everyone who’s no-one in Grimsby.
Afterwards at our staff canteen, the Othello Restaurant, one of my part-time staff keeps breathing deeply, sticking her chest out and offering an interesting side profile. Pretend not to notice, while surreptitiously staring. "She’s had a boob job. It cost £3,500" my PA explains. About £100 an inch on my estimate but it gives me the licence to stare obsessively at this miracle of medical science. Purely for research purposes, of course.
Sunday 24 December.
Linda’s invited "a few people" for Christmas filling the house with Antipodeans. Four Australians (all speaking with the volume turned up to levels appropriate for such a big country), four New Zealanders, including their Speaker, three Tykes, including me (an applicant for naturalisation in Grimsby), three grandchildren of mixed race (Yorkshire and London). In short, Bedlam. From looking forward to Christmas I’m reduced to despair.
Monday 25 December.
Christmas Day but this particular manger is too small and full of Antipodeans hogging the phone. The bill will be enormous. They also hog the telly trying to get cricket and loudly denounce English beer, French wine, Yorkshire weather, British prices and me (when I invite them to go home if they don’t like it) as an intolerant, condescending, half-baked Pom. It’s at moments like these I wonder whether there isn’t something to be said for the EU.
Sunday 31 December.
Linda’s birthday party is at Sowerby Bridge Swimming Pool. Mulled wine upstairs, swimming races (Antipodeans versus the civilised world - and Europe) downstairs. With four lifeguards in compulsory attendance in case any children drown. Which I’d assumed to be the object of the exercise.
She’s invited hundreds of friends. I’ve invited both mine. Fortunately the weather forecast is blizzards and by three o’clock the road to our house is impassable and a long succession of phone calls begins. "Can’t come owing to:- rigor mortis-polar bears-broken skis-dying huskies-no chains etc. etc".
Just enough come to make it enjoyable. I am in charge of the races, marching up and down shouting, like Hitler, through a megaphone. Three teams, Yorkshire, Antipodes and Europe (Hungarians, Poles and Southern English) compete. I try to ensure that civilisation (ie Yorkshire) wins. In fact, New Zealand wins and there’s an ugly confrontation with the Australians. So I announce "penny diving" and throw handfuls of coins into the pool. It immediately fills with Yorkshire folk. The Antipodeans continue to drink themselves into a stupor.
Adjourn home to await the New Year, Australians complaining loudly that they can’t see the Sydney fireworks (which were, in fact, twelve hours ago) on television. So they phone more relatives and friends back home. The thing about small countries is that they’re all related to each other. Outside the blizzard abates and more people arrive after midnight demanding food and drink, some of which the Antipodeans gracelessly surrender, complaining about "greedy Poms". No-one goes home until three o’clock. By which time I’m thoroughly fed up of the new Millennium. Does Tony Blair have to put up with this?
Friday 5 January.
Work resumes. To Grimsby, then to Hull for a meeting between Humberside MPs and the Chief Constable. He’s cock-a-hoop. Dramatic falls in crime figures from putting more uniform people out on the streets. It’s good news and I decide to use it along with photos of me doing police firearms training with a machine gun. A similar picture did a lot for Winston Churchill and could give the impression that I’m personally responsible for the better figures. As well as undercutting the only clear policy the Tories have. Kill burglars.
Back to Grimsby for more surgery cases. All the really complicated ones emerge after Christmas. Finally to Shona’s party in Immingham but it’s the wrong one. She invited me to a party tomorrow night. I’ve come to her office party instead. Shona depresses me even more than usual by listing all the electioneering she’s done over Christmas.
Monday 8 January.
Back to the Fun Factory with a bigger bag of undone work than I took home. Why is every year the same? Vows to clear the desk during recess. A misspent two weeks. Then back, vowing to catch up in London. Which I never do because each Parliamentary week will now be busy doing nothing. Good to see Nick Raynsford finally implementing the seller survey system I proposed in my House Buyer’s Bill in 1983. Trouble is with so many low value houses in Grimsby the cost will hit badly off sellers disproportionately hard.
Tuesday 9 January.
Sending Tommy McAvoy a Christmas card with photos of my grandchildren waiting pathetically for me to come home has done no good. I’d thought 10.00 pm was now a guaranteed P.O.H. (Push Off Home) time with a "Laissez Coucher" Pass from Ann Taylor. Not so. Tonight 200 "volunteers" are kept back until 2.30 to vote down six of Forth’s Freedom Fighters.
Wednesday 10 January.
Initial Agriculture Committee meeting on IACS, whatever they are. As the briefing goes on I realise we are embarked on a nightmare trying to understand the CAP payments system in the two and a half months remaining before the election. No wonder farmers are going mad and committing suicide.
*****
Sadly, the year starts with a sky black with chickens coming home to roost. Because we’re so near to an election the parties will argue about whether they’re storks bearing new life, or vultures. Both will ignore the cause.
Our grossly overvalued exchange rate has made production, whether of cows or Cavaliers, unprofitable in the UK. All the foreigners we’ve brought in to do the manufacturing and the investment British capital wont have been conned, but have allowed British capital to pour overseas, particularly to the US, where it’s got bigger profits and a huge stock market and asset appreciation.
Now both games are up. The American bonanza is over. Foreign finance won’t be fooled into staying here and the pace of closures in Britain and transfer of production overseas are quickening. The third manufacturing wind down has began. Ignore it. Just wrestle in mud for the next four months. |
