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Having got used to walking on water the sudden turn around is a huge shock. Yet it’s just that normal politics have resumed and sadly those who rule by the spin die by it once people begin to disbelieve the figures and realise that endless initiatives don’t mean improvement. They voted for things to get better and they haven’t as quickly as they hoped for.
We tied our hands to prove ourselves safe. We used a majority, big enough to do anything, to do lots of politically correct things and treated our friends - teachers, councillors, unions, party members, and the public sector as the enemy within. A small group round the PM advised by whizz kids took all the decisions so MPs didn’t feel involved in it and when nemesis came our friends sat on their hands, our new ones were no use, and the public wondered if we actually believe in anything. Of course we do: an election victory on the theme of "things can only get better" then five more years of doing nothing very much. I can hardly contain my excitement.
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Sunday 25 June
Dunkirk Veterans’ service. Too few and too old to carry on, they’re laying up their banners in a final parade, the sadness alleviated by amazing stories of a courage we’ll never see again like the Pole who escaped via Greece, enrolled in the French Air Force, then escaped in a rowing boat from Dunkirk.
Then to a Labour Party Branch to present a Long Service Certificate to Margaret Parker who tells us about the war, the bombing, the Americans and their nylons. It makes our present problems look as trivial as they are.
Monday 26 June
A Fabian day. A large party to show round the Fun Factory, then the Local Societies meeting, then the Annual Tea. The Fabians are the only Think Tank with real people and a real history. Which makes us very odd in New Labour, a party still trying to live down its past so that it can’t now learn lessons from it.
Wednesday 28 June
Arrival of our spanking new pagers. We’ve to pay for them out of our office accounts, even though they’re party puppet strings. Ms Filkin should devote her talent for nit-picking to this issue. I hope they’ve got spell check. The old ones used to talk about "whipps" and "division imminent".
Spend the morning organising my thoughts on the Limited Liability Partnerships Bill which is a monstrous perk for accountants without any countervailing protection for consumers. Can’t see why if our legislative timetable is so packed we’ve found time for this special interest rubbish; but we are and neither Jim Cousins nor I could get on the standing committee so we’ve had to put down amendments at a report stage, cunningly placed before the Fur Farming and Cuddly Animals Protection Bill, a real heart tugger which we’ll be delaying.
Happily the whips then panic into believing that the Tories will talk on all our amendments - which they won’t because they’re in favour of dirty deals for vested interests. So we’re invited to a conference with the Minister who offers concessions to persuade us to withdraw the bulk of our amendments. We do but it’s still a bad Bill which will open up all kinds of tax and fraud fiddles. The Third Way can be very muddy, as Lord Levy says.
Friday 30 June
Open Grimsby’s new Community Resource Centre which should help revive Freeman Street, once the heart of Grimsby, now fallen on tougher times.
Then to the Town Hall for a reception for Wendy Saud who’s two sons were hijacked by their Libyan father. She’s struggled for ten years to get them back with what little help I could give and enormous courage, and now the eldest son has come home, a handsome, grown lad of 18. The sooner we get the Libyans to ratify the Hague Convention the better.
Saturday 1 July
Open the St. Andrew’s Church Summer Fair. The Line Dancing has been cancelled because of rain and as soon as I’ve amassed my usual pile of books and plastic toys for grandchildren people take me aside to mutter their dissatisfactions over pensions, NHS conditions, Council cuts, and the long delay in providing compensation for trawlermen.
Sunday 2 July
To Yorkshire Television for a recording on my Magic Moments. The archives department can’t find the Magic Moments I suggested, like my by-election victory, the custard pies thrown in my face when I solemnly announced the death of IRA hunger striker, Frank Stagg, or my happy interview with Harold Wilson, so they’ve provided substitutes, all of which seem to involve naked women in saunas, strip clubs or topless tassel twirling as a demonstration of double jeopardy. This is clearly part of the Mandelsonian plot to discredit me for discrediting the Dome. No-one is too small to be Mandelsonised.
Monday 3 July
Leaks from officials in the Foreign Office and the DTI designed to show that Instant Euro is the only way out of the problems of the high Pound. Ministers shouldn’t use civil servants as proxies in Cabinet’s Euro war. It exposes the fact that they have the economic understanding of whelks.
We couldn’t join the Euro at this rate or anything like it. Indeed proclaiming entry would keep Sterling high, create "confidence" and give speculators a one-way bet.
If the Government was serious about the Euro they’d get interest rates and the Pound down and keep Sterling there for the two year probation period. If they’re serious about manufacturing they’d get it down even further. Since they merely sit like rabbits caught in headlights as disaster looms they either don’t understand what’s going on, or aren’t serious about the Euro or manufacturing or both. So why waste time on a theological argument.
Wednesday 5 July
Why do we mess about with purely symbolic issues like Clause 28 when there’s so much to be done to improve the lot of our people? Fortunately I’m excused from deciding by being allowed out to speak at the Heating and Ventilation contractors dinner. Accompanied by my Whip, Gerry Sutcliffe, who explains that the Whips normally invigilate in threes: one who can write, one who can read and a third to keep an eye on the intellectuals, but tonight there’s only him because I’ve promised to defend the Government’s line on the Euro which I’m happy to do because our positive "maybe" is so much better than the cowardly indecisive Tory "maybe not". However, the Heating and Ventilation contractors glaze over when told that the best contractors Parliament has ever had were both Yorkshiremen. Guy Fawkes (Ventilation) and the installer of the under floor heating in 1834. Neither was Corgi registered.
Thursday 6 July
To the Australian reception in the Royal Gallery expecting tubes of Fosters and a chunder in the Throne Room. In fact it’s a glittering affair with five Aussie Prime Ministers, including Bob Hawke and Gough Whitlam, and five State Premiers including my friend, Bob Carr who tells me that his caucus stopped him privatising electricity, the Liberals then did it and were thrown out in a landslide as a result. We can learn from this.
Incensed about poor Euan, particularly at the mates who left him and at the police. Who told two girls asking for help for a sick kid they were too busy? Only when the ambulance came did the cops turn up. To arrest him and then give the story to the press!
I’ve suppressed for several decades the fact that when I went to school in France I was arrested at 13 for being drunk at my Lycee’s end of term celebrations. The gendarmes belted me, decided they couldn’t understand a word I was saying - I couldn’t either - and called my host to take me home. It’s tough on kids at that age but particularly politicians’ kids.
Friday 7 July
After a day in Grimsby, drive to Oxford to the Nuffield College Gaudy for the Whizz Kids of the Fifties and Sixties turned Was Kids. Eighty Nine shuffle in on sticks and Zimmer frames, 38 Professors and College Fellows, 12 Vice Chancellors and College Heads, 5 Peers, 4 Knights and a nondescript few, such as Chief Economist to the World Bank, DG of Water Services, and Competition Commissioner. Which leaves only me still buggering round on the backbenches, to be condescended to all evening and told how badly the Government is doing. Drive back to Grimsby sulking. I should have gone to Harvard.
Saturday 8 July
Fish Dock Open Day. Crowds of former fishermen proudly explain the great days of their industry to kids and grandchildren which makes me realise just how important it was to be part of a great industry. It gave pride, a sense of identity and community. Now we’ve destroyed fishing and all the other basic industries to be swept away by Europe, free trade and globalisation that’s kicked our working class in the teeth and offered them only low-paid jobs, pathetic benefits, 75p on pensions and endless sermons on political correctness, gays, lesbians and foxes in return. No wonder the heartlands beat slowly.
Sunday 9 July
Lost Fishermen`s Day on the fish dock to commemorate the fishermen who died in Britain’s toughest industry making Grimsby Great. Large numbers of wreaths "To Grandad", "To Dad", to husbands and fathers killed by that cruel mistress, the sea. Then the trawlermen crowd round demanding to know what’s happening to the claim for compensation they’ve been making since 1976 when the last Labour Government promised it. "Are you waiting until we’re all dead?" If government doesn’t give them this just claim soon I’m nervous about the consequences - and the betrayal.
Monday 10 July
To the Yorkshire Show to read out my faxes on the wonderful things we’re doing for Agriculture. It’s had a far better deal than fishermen who get no compensation when their vessels are laid up, or manufacturing which has fired 250,000 workers because of the overvalued Pound. The assembled hacks don’t like this but I have the audience with me all the way. To the A1.
Arrive in London to be one of three geriatric MPs who’re being used as guinea pigs for the introduction of new technology. Rebecca, my new American intern, tells the film crew that my computers are prehistoric. Desperately I show them that I have my own Website - but it hasn’t been updated since 1999. The new equipment I’ve got on trial includes a web-cam which will allow me to give my own Party Political Broadcasts to Grimsby and e-mail every Grimsby elector on the web. All three of them.
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We all need a break. Ministers are coming up with too many insane ideas. Tony is rattled and backbenchers are tired. No use sulking. This is part of the painful process of growing up. Our media democracy needs disposable leaders. The Aw Shucks Lochinvar role is played out. Time now to give up the Dale Winton routine and become a leader who can’t be all things to all men. Trust our friends, realise that you can’t embrace everyone because a party needs enemies, and decide what we’re about. Perhaps we should change our name from "New" to "Classic" Labour. We must deliver something to improve the lot of our people. Not too tall an order. And twenty months to do it! |
