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Re-selection rages. In Grimsby they talk of little else but whether the party will sack its geriatric MP in a frenzy of modernisation. The Member himself hopes that Grimsby is too far from London or Castleford to be attractive to the golden lads and girls. Meanwhile he’s playing safe: praising the Leader, defending party policies wherever he can find them, explaining that money allocated seventeen times before is still new money, and advocating goodwill to France, their poisonous food, rotten wine and vicious farmers.
No one representing a fishing port can go too closely into what French animals are fed on.
So great my new loyalty I even joined a queue of MPs outside the Guardian all anxious to curry favour by attacking Ken Livingstone. Sadly, there were too many ministers ahead of me. A shame because I wanted to ask why, if Ken’s that bad, London party members can’t be trusted to recognise that fact on their own. Perhaps though it’s better to keep quiet on that - and all other issues - until my own re-selection is over. 2001 at this rate.
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Thursday 28 September
Inspired by Tony’s Conference call to defeat the forces of conservatism, I rush out to beat up a few Old Age Pensioners or Bournemouth residents. But then stop to wonder if this is wise. This is a conservative country. That’s why we won the election. I represent a party which stood on a platform of "do nothing and ask Mrs. Thatcher". So who am I to attack the forces of conservatism?
Every party needs an enemy. The Tories are too pathetic to provide one, despite William Hague’s new Grant Mitchell image and with all the other top Tories, and the Liberals, on our side it’s a bit puzzling who to hit out at. We also need some clues on what to think. I thought Socialism was about equality. Now it’s about meritocracy. I thought it should help the old. Now it’s ageist. I wanted to abolish privilege. Now public school and Oxbridge whiz-kids stride the golden path to Labour’s commanding heights. They’ve got the gift of the gab which working class kids have don’t . As John Prescott might put it.
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Monday 4 October
To Blackpool where the lost tribe of Tories wanders aimlessly. They’re so old many remember me from Yorkshire television. Very gratifying because it’s so long since I was on telly I’m doing celebrity endorsements for Zimmer frames.
Speak at a Tory fringe meeting in favour of regional government for Yorkshire and Humberside. Am defeated by only 89 votes to 1. My wife didn’t even vote for me.
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Monday 11 October
Police day. Having missed Friday’s all night public order patrol in Hull because of incipient rigor mortis, on today’s dogs and horses day I am kept away from the animals in case I infect them. Perhaps as well in view of the loving way the doggies try to rip the arms off suspects and chase me through an empty hospital in scenes reminiscent of The Shining.
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Friday 15 October
To the Gunner’s Watch pub to present the cups for the Grimsby Angling Club. Tonight there’s something odd; not just the suspicion (which several ask me about) that Labour is to ban fishing as well as fox hunting but the fact that Bill Snell, who runs the club like Tony Blair does the party, announces that the wrong names have been engraved on the cups, including the hallowed Austin Mitchell Cup. So after I’ve presented them, he’ll take them all back. After only five of the forty cups on display are handed over, Bill draws proceedings to a close, thanks his wife for preparing the enormous mountain of food and whispers to me not to eat the prawns. Immediate cries of anger and rage. Several fishermen grab him shouting "What about my bloody cup?" To quell the fighting we hand out all the cups promiscuously, including some to casual drinkers who’ve dropped in. Many refuse to give them back. Desperately I ask the pop group to come on, then leave the angry scene to the sound of "Unchained Melody".
Monday 18 October
Another police day. Serious crime shadowing a car with tracker device, then an amazing demonstration of surveillance cameras fitted in lamp posts, trees, fire alarms, helmets, button holes, cables, sprinklers, anywhere there’s a legal orifice. Pretty soon you can forget the idea of everyone famous for twenty minutes. It will be everyone to their own camera. We’ll all be television personalities. So busy appearing there’ll be no one left to watch it.
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Friday 22 October
To Grantham for a printing industry conference. I’m to present. "An Evening with Austin Mitchell". For the same money they could have had a half hour with Tony Blair, two minutes with Alistair Campbell or a week with Ann Widdicombe. The stand-up routine Bernard Manning taught me in the Seventies doesn’t go down too well. They do join in my song about "Free the Robinson One" but as I prepare to depart for a brief pilgrimage to Mrs. Thatcher’s birth place (the manger) the organiser says pointedly, "Last year we had Ken Livingstone and he stayed with us until 2am.".
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Sunday 24 October
To Hebden Bridge to start the water wheel at Hebden Bridge Mill. David Fletcher saved the mill, a technique later followed by Salt’s Mill and Dean Clough, by subdividing it into shops, workshops, restaurants and studios. Now he’s restored the water wheel. When the Environment Agency objected that he didn’t have a consent to extract water he produced the original consent of 1341.
His genius does not extend to timing. I’m told to arrive at 4.00. Nothing is happening. The Mayor and Mayoress of Hebden Royd arrive at 4.30, followed by the Mayor of Calderdale who’s been told 4.45. David Fletcher himself appears at 5.00. The crowd, the jazz band, the dancing girls and the media pour in at 5.30, the time on the invitations.
So at 5.45 I open the sluice gate, exhausting myself by opening and closing it for Yorkshire Television. In the old days I filmed with a crew of twelve. Today it’s a one-woman crew. She’s camera person, sound recordist, lighting, electrician, reporter, producer and grips carrying the heavy gear. She’s also four months pregnant. This is real multi-skilling.
Inside the mill the wheel is now going full tilt and my grandchildren are trying to climb onto it for a ride. The crowd has drunk all the free booze. David Fletcher has given my speech, all of which will feature in the scandalous chronicles published as A View from the Bridge, which portrays Hebden Bridge as the new Holmfirth. Or the new Peyton Place. Yorkshire folk are people of few words and for me these have turned to "Bugger off". So I do, muttering that we Mitchells were Heptonstall hand loom weavers so we’ve looked down on Hebden Bridge for generations.
Monday 25 October
My plan for a triumphal return to Westminster calling in at 10 and 11 Downing Street (best to do both to be on the safe side) before a personal welcome from Ann Taylor and Tommy McAvoy (with photo opportunity for the Grimsby Evening Telegraph) misfires. Linda drives south on her own after an argument leaving me with three grandchildren and the dog to take to the kennels for his B&B. Dog escapes. Grandchildren want to visit Eureka, Halifax Piece Hall, Bradford Imax, Salt’s Mill and Shipley Glen Tramway before they’ll consider going south. Eventually arrive in London exhausted at 10.30 pm. Tommy McAvoy must have got tired of waiting and I’ve forgotten to ask for a pair. Bad beginning.
Wednesday 27 October
Visit to the Dome with group of MPs. I’ve been very critical of the Hezzerdome in the past. Now, to see it complete with the androgynous figure, millions of pounds of high tech equipment, and all the zones rapidly filling convinces me I was absolutely right. It’s still the most pointless waste of £750 million anyone could devise. Today’s visit adds a new worry. How on earth can it be ready on time?
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Back to the Fun Factory is like back to school. But worse. Back to running round in small circles, busy doing nothing, the role of the New Labour MP. Two years of
walking on water, while doing nothing very much, has been boring. Now we’re at the end of the golden weather and the testing begins. We also face the problem of what to do next to fill the gaping void to the next election with our programme done and dusted already.
With a majority big enough to do anything we’ve done nothing very much because we tied our own hands to prove how safe we were. That’s a trick you can only pull once. A lot of legislation on second order constitutional issues, which don’t improve the lot of the people, some betterment, largely due to the recovery we inherited (and have now damped), a minimum wage which isn’t high enough and spending increases on health, education and local government no one feels. That’s our not so brave new world. Not enough to produce gibbering gratitude or bring our voters out in force. It’s only a nicer face on today’s harder, nastier, capitalism which the people don’t like anyway because of the colder, meaner, more uncertain world it’s forced on them.
So what do we do next? We’ve given up on Keynes. We really believe in monetarism, lower public spending and financial orthodoxy. We won’t borrow to improve public services and don’t have a macro policy. So we’re throwing away the great opportunity low inflation allows us to go for growth and full employment.
We’re also losing touch with the people. We know their every opinion, focus their every mood, but neither know, nor like them. Manipulating the media and conning the media elite aren’t talking to real people. We’re for the people but not from them and whatever condescending attempts we make to identify by obsessive footballism we lack any populist empathy. Our popular roots are becoming as deep as those of a glossy oil slick on the surface of deep and troubled waters. Still, at least if the waves begin to break and the depths to stir it will make life less boring than it’s been for the last two and a half years. |
