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All Hail the Power of Campbell`s name. Let Media Prostrate Fall. Not quite how we sang it at Charlestown Methodist Chapel (before it became a carpet warehouse) but a victory anthem as the war of Alistair’s Ego ends with three dead, the BBC grovelling at the feet of the conqueror and government acquitted on all charges.
I`ve seen many Downing Street v BBC fights but never one as bloody as this. Harold Wilson disposed of Hugh Carlton Green, Margaret Thatcher dumped Alistair Milne, both by appointing a new chairman to get rid of a DG quietly by a knife in the back. Campbell prefers blitzkrieg, total victory, then a parade.
No wonder Tony wants to draw a line in the blood. The overkill will do him no good. Lord Hutton Blanco`d for Britain too vigorously. Alistair was as magnanimous as his hero Fergie to an Irish race horse owner. The spectacle of us rushing to put the boot in to an institution people respect will do us no good. The people`s judgement is very different to Hutton`s.
Which will make tomorrow`s great debate an anti-climax. Hutton`s not provided any bricks to throw at the government and Tories can`t attack a judge. The Liberals wanted a more general enquiry into why we went to war but Tony`s pre-empted that (by kind permission of George Dubya). Labour`s speakers will be torn between triumphalism and their traditional support for the BBC, though, in fact, if Ministers say the BBC matters now it can only be because its wounds are turning septic. Everyone will be talking backwards while the public yawns.
How goes Labour`s Great Leader fight? Don`t assume that Tony now owes Gordon for saving him. On the contrary the Fees fiasco shows Gordon isn`t tough enough. He blinked and called off his lads. Unlike Tony, he`s too cautious to seize the moment. Which gets him no gratitude and divides supporters who felt let down.
Tony survives, damaged. The public likes a chancer but the party is fed up of leadership which does everything for his mates, Alistair, Mandy and Charlie, but nowt for Labour. It`s no way to run a grown up party, though it may work with New Labour because Tony`s assumption is that we can be driven like sheep through the lobbies to support anything he wants.
We do, indeed, have a serious sheep syndrome. So he`s been right so far. But by diminishing margins as people lose faith in a leader who`s damaged; merely the best we`ve got, no longer super-human. As the 2005 election approaches we`ll rally round. But I fear the public have lost faith even more than we have because they are ceasing to trust him. And us.
You read it here first. In last week’s column I forecast my vote on the Fees Bill. Against unless I could get something for Grimsby. It was read at ministerial level. I immediately got what I was asking for.
However, I was wrong to think the government was sure to win. It was much more of a cliff-hanger. At five o`clock three whips all separately told me “defeat by eight votes” while an angry George Mudie still prophesised a win for the antis, saying that Nick Brown would only take four votes with him.
Then came the late switches. At 6.30, half an hour before the vote, I got my request in writing. Others climbed back on board because of the promise of an enquiry, though that has been on offer the week before. Some said it was Alan Johnson`s wind up speech. Very good but not that brilliant. A few wanted jobs. Or were just scared.
Almost enough but I was still surprised when government won by only five votes. My vote would have made it three. They`d still have proceeded with the Bill but it made me feel quite guilty when Charles Clarke embraced me as I came out of the lobby. I slunk off home, halting only to express my well concealed misery to the BBC, Sky, ITV, IRN, Radio 5 (Half Alive) and Al Jazeera. Now I’m in a mess. Hate mail is flowing in and I can’t tell anyone in Grimsby what my quid (hopefully quids) pro quo were. No one loves a pig in the Pork Barrel. |
