|
Another Post Socialist Year of triumphs for the Third Way as the onward march of the people moves on to Tony knows where. The rest of us will eventually be told. On a need to know basis.
Thursday 25 April
To Anzac Day services at the Cenotaph, then the Abbey. Very moving. Two generations of Anzacs came half way round the world to fight and die for Britain in wars in which they had no national interest at all, and New Zealand had more killed in ratio to population than Britain. New Zealand troops fought with distinction in North Africa, Greece and Italy long after the fall of Singapore posed a direct threat to the Antipodes. They fought for a "Home" country which only 25 years later betrayed them and scuttled into Europe. Now Britain treats the descendants of the fallen as undesirable immigrants, however much it needs their skills and contribution and we were about to cut any right to work here by half until Helen Clark took Tony by the elbow at CHOGM and put him straight.
Evening Off to Cambridge for a debate on the demise of the Conservative Party. Obviously the Tory Party has no role in a world in which we`re all conservatives now and not only is Labour better at it, but Mrs. T. made the Tories raving radicals not a party dedicated to the basic principle of conservatism: "Do nothing and ask your grandmother". Bit difficult when granny`s Mrs. T.
The debate gives me the idea that we may have found the secret of permanent power. Sit in the middle of the road like a great blancmange, doing nothing much to anyone (except our own supporters who don`t matter). Oppositions can`t drive through the blancmange so it must go left, like the Liberals, or right like the Tories, thus incapacitating itself because no-one wants extremists. Keep in touch with the noises people want through focus groups. Give them the polices they want from the polls. Spin the news, and Bingo!!! Power forever. What can possibly go wrong? Sadly, we lost the Cambridge debate. Sion Simon pisses off without bothering to hear my speech and Boris Johnson and the Tories shout that they`ve got lots of bright ideas though they can`t, unfortunately, tell us now. A very Conservative audience believes them. The young are so gullible.
Sunday 28 April
Afternoon to the Grimsby boy Scout Service and Parade with the Mayor, Clergy, Scouters. We review the Parade a hundred yards away from the flat where we reviewed it three years ago. There Lord Yarborough and I were invited by angry youths to turn the effing row down. We didn`t. So they turned their gramophone up loud to drown us out as the band marched on. Finally they recognised me and my shouts of Eff Off. This year all goes well. Except that it pours down.
Evening To the celebration of my first quarter century as MP for Grimsby. How time flies when you`re having fun. Our celebration fish and chip dinner is attended by such of the local Party as can still remember me and are still ambulant. A great occasion. Sadly, the message I`ve asked Tony to send saying "Now for the next 25 years together" doesn`t arrive. Is he afraid he won`t last that long? I`m looking forward to it though I did notice a few flickers of anxiety at the prospect of another quarter century of lectures about a competitive exchange rate.
Thursday 2 May
Local elections everywhere. Except Grimsby and Wales. I should have applied for a debate on Grimsby and the world. Sadly, the Welsh have got in first. The election results are odd. Disastrous for the Tories who made a third of their gains in just 5 London Boroughs and half in 12. But not particularly good for us either.
It looks as though people are turning against incumbent parties in the big cities. David Cowling, who does the expert analysis, tells me he`s having to change everything he`s argued in the past about local elections being decided by reactions to the party in power nationally. As a New Labour MP I spend my life going against everything I`ve taught in the past. So why shouldn`t the psephologists?
Still, at least the Great Mayor experiment seems to have gone sadly wrong. Particularly in Hartlepool Les Deux Singes. Today`s and the one they hung in the Napoleonic wars.
Friday 3 May
To Galaxy Radio in Leeds to be briefed about their views on the Communications Bill. I`m miffed not to be on the committee. The two people who proposed this Joint Special Committee, David Lipsey and I, aren`t on it because the New Labour principle is that to know anything about an issue disqualifies from any committee dealing with it.
In my days as a Disc Jockey I played records you liked and chatted away. Now the records are chosen by someone else, computerised, formatted and played automatically and the DJ just jives, phones friends, picks his nose or eats a three course meal. In fact, all the things I used to do, from Bingo calling to TV presentation and D Jaying, now all so tightly computer programmed that the presenter plays no part except to stand there and grin inanely. Like leading the Labour Party. I`ll never catch up with technology at my age. No going back if I ever get thrown out by Grimsby. Even the House of Lords will be computerised and lobotomised by then.
Sunday 5 May
The wrath of the politically correct world has descended on the head of Anne Winterton. Very unfairly. She should never have asked Nick for a joke. I`d have supplied one, provided she`d attributed it to my Yorkshire Joke Book which is so full of sexist, racist and politically incorrect jokes that I`ve been trying for months to get someone to complain about the filth and sexism to boost the sales. Politico`s have sold out but racists, sexists and mucky-minded perverts, can still order copies from me, dispatched under plain cover. No requirement to declare it in the Register of Interests.
Thursday 9 May
Forced to cut short my lecture to a visiting American Elderhostel Group in Birkbeck College to get back to the Commons for John Prescott`s statement on regional government. Murmur something about prostrate problems. That gets a sympathetic response from the elderly men in the audience. Belt from the room. Arrive at the Commons just in time bursting for a pee.
The announcement is a good day for Yorkshire and John Prescott who`s battled this through against all Whitehall opposition and leadership disinterest. Unfortunately it doesn`t give regional governments enough powers. You`ll only make people interested if it can affect their lives. The government has erected all sorts of hurdles, including a local government review, the abolition of the counties, and a referendum vote, and all my Euro-sceptic friends are against me on this issue. They`re trying to expel me on the grounds that any supporter of regional government is a Brussel`s Quisling, homosexual, and friend of De Lors.
Monday 13 May
Robin Cook puts up the Closed sign outside the Lords announcing that we`re to bring Carol Smilie and Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen in for a D.I.Y. Changing Chambers with a pick and mix team of nominees and electees but no Hereds.
Existing Members, and dispossessed Hereds, are to have a chamber in a hulk moored on the Terrace so they can say what they like on any issue. They`ll have no power of voting but access to the bars and dining rooms to keep them happy. Who`d want to be in an elected second chamber with hordes of people just like us, the neighbours from hell? We`ve managed, by accident rather than design, to end up with a rather good second chamber which is being a nuisance to government, as any good chamber should be, and is using its power to say "No".
Now its Members are to be asked to vote for their own demise. They won`t. Hacks retiring from the Commons can`t then be put out to grass in the Lords, though Euro-enthusiasts will still go off to get their rewards in well paid sinecures in Europe for betraying their country to the EU.
The Environment Committee meets on the Fridge Mountain but breaks up in chaos. The chairman`s draft, clearly written in Brussels, says it`s all our fault and the Commission has been blameless and brilliant. I move amendments saying Michael Meacher is wonderful and should bear me in mind for a job as his PPS now that Elliot Morley has let me down so badly. Sadly, my amendments are longer than the report, so the committee breaks up in disarray with members storming out saying that Mr. Prodi will never entertain us to lunch again if they`re carried.
Evening To New Zealand House for the Inauguration of Cartoon Hub, an internet site where you can see all the cartoons drawn by great cartoonists (most of them Kiwis like Low, Gibbard, Garland). If you print your own name in it fetches up all the cartoons about you. In my case two from 1979 when I was famous. Large queues of MPs punching in their own names. Never got to see me.
Tuesday 14 May
Chris Booker rings up to ask why I`m writing him abusive letters as "Mr. Christoph" to his home address. Turns out that someone has written to me suggesting I should resign my seat as a protest against the Common Fisheries Policy but won`t because I`m a gutless wonder. It`s signed "B. Christoph" from Booker`s home address. I usually write back to idiots saying "I think you should know that some lunatic has been using your name and address to write insane letters to me. So I am enclosing this for you to take whatever action you think appropriate." I`ve not done that for twenty years because the last time I did it turned out to be true. The householder called in the police who came to interview me to ask how did I know it was a lunatic and did I want them prosecuted? You can`t win. Booker is very kind but asks me not to write to him again.
Evening To the Catalyst relaunch, like a scrapbook for 1981 or the reunion of Solidarity. At the end Lynn Jones arrives and denounces me as a weakling and a coward (again). I thought the votes were at 10.00. She tells me that the House has voted to let the Whips keep appointing (ie castrating) Select Committees and Chairs, thus giving ministers control and making them lapdogs instead of watchdogs. Still, as gutless wonders we deserve no better. We`d rather use the Select Committees as a path to promotion than as a tool for controlling the executive.
Wednesday 15 May
Speak about housing at the Neighbours from Hell Conference in Regents Park. Right next to the American Ambassador`s residence.
***
Here comes summer. Tommy McAvoy has smiled at me. My wife has transferred me to light household duties so I can finish my book on New Zealand. The economy is going downhill, but more slowly than I thought. Gather ye Rosebuds. |
