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7peterpreston

0Politics

I broke the habit of half a lifetime last week and filled out a job application. To Mr Stephen Bampfylde of Saxton Bampfylde Hever plc ... "Dear Sir, would you please put me on the application list to be the next parliamentary commissioner for standards?" Dispatched with a first class stamp. I am not, of course, holding my breath. The next parliamentary commissioner ought to be the present parliamentary commissioner, Elizabeth Filkin. That may still happen - and if it shows any sign of so doing, my hat comes straight out of the ring. But does Ms Filkin accept Robin Cook's bland assurance that she has been "neither sacked nor dismissed" from the job she holds? Does her heart rise at the thought that an "open and transparent system" operated by an entirely opaque House of Commons commission will graciously put her on the shortlist if she fills out one of Saxton Bampfylde Hever's forms? Especially when she sees that her successor is offered the "possibility of (contract) extension by mutual agreement" - which means that transparency ends once she packs her bags? I haven't talked to Elizabeth Filkin - and have no idea what she intends to do. But who, wise in the ways of Westminster, would blame her if she decided to sit this humiliation out? After three years devoted toil - and too much whispered vilification - she may reasonably conclude that enough is enough, that playing more of the House's little games merely gives succour to her enemies. Let's fervently hope it's not so. But what if it is? Then (which is the trouble with little games) we have a nasty hiatus. For who else with her reputation, pray, will volunteer to serve three years in the Commons salt mines in a role briskly downgraded between terms - a three-day week and a lower salary if Mr Bampfylde's small print speaks true? It isn't exactly a glowing prospectus. There will, of course, be some applications. Unemployment is on the rise again. But the Filkin reputation will be desperately hard to replicate - and the damage that her "non-dismissal" has done is manifest. MPs may prefer not to realise it, but the fight against political sleaze and public cynicism which began seven years ago goes on unremittingly. Ask Keith Vaz (if you can find him these days). Ask Geoffrey Robinson after his three weeks in the sin bin studying investment portfolios. These barricades need manning. And the men and women who man them need to be visible, not heads sunk below the parapet. Here's why my application went in. I've "operated at the most senior level within a complex institution" (welcome to the Guardian maze). I've a "reasonable understanding of the working of the House" - for my sins. I've trooped through privileges committee hearings and inquiries by the commissioner, given evidence to Nolan and Neill and the over-arching committee for standards in public life. Appropriate "personal standards of integrity and propriety"? This "hound from hell" could at least make the argument. At least, if I'm known to be a contender, then you on the outside have something to measure the workings of the system and its final choice against. If you know what, in part, went in, then you can judge what came out. Three cheers for Elizabeth Filkin (or Martin Bell). No cheers for Sir Simeon Sludgeworthy. The bitter reality, of course, is that nothing was supposed to happen this way. It wasn't what Lord Nolan prescribed in the wake of the Neil Hamilton and Tim Smith debacle. His committee for standards in public life, in its magisterial first report, wanted a parliamentary commissioner of "independent standing" who "would have the same ability to make findings and conclusions public as is enjoyed by the comptroller and auditor-general..." Linger over that. A person of independent standing, not the servant of a committee of politicians free to disregard or water down her conclusions - and to lever her out of her job in a couple of months. A direct comparison with the comptroller and auditor-general: Sir John Bourn has held that job by Crown appointment since 1988. His independence is guaranteed by total security of tenure. Lord Nolan didn't get his way. MPs closed clubby ranks and Sir Gordon Downey was cast as the port of first resort, receiving complaints against Hon Members, making an initial investigation (though without any investigators on his tiny staff) and passing them on to other Hon Members for action. The "outside" influence Nolan thought so crucial to public trust and proper accountability became a transit zone. The fig-leaf tendency glimpsed sunlit uplands just over the time horizon. Not, perhaps, without a struggle. Elizabeth Filkin has struggled mightily. She has taken the rules her political employers gave her and applied them punctiliously. Her investigations of Mr Vaz and Mr Robinson are masterpieces of forensic energy and detail. She has done her duty. With what reward? Murmured moans from the ex-great and good on the lecture circuit. Schoolboy antics of tit-for-tat complaining across the political divide. And, most depressing of the lot, orchestrated briefing against her from "friends" of threatened ministers. Who will rid us of this troublesome commissioner? Enter Saxton Bampfylde Hever plc. Enter due process. In an ideal world, the PM would pause in his moral sermonisings to the world and say what, as an ordinary, honourable Joe, he thinks of Ms Filkin's predicament. In an ideal world, the new chairman of the standards and privileges committee, Sir George Young, would have joined hands with Peter Bottomley and spoken on her behalf. In an ideal world, Sir Nigel Wicks, successor to Nolan and Neill, would have broken cover already. His committee has two big things on the boil. One, a big research programme on public attitudes. The other, a giant stocktake of what's been delivered on those seven reports over seven toiling years. The Filkin fiasco sits balefully under both those headings. It was Sir Nigel who said in his first press conference early this year that Ms Filkin should be given greater power "to obtain information when investigating cases", that she shouldn't have to battle so long through the forests of Vaz or John Reid obfuscation. For "greater power", it seems, read less power and no job. In an ideal world, he'd make that point openly. He can defend the way the Department of Transport handled Jo Moore in a letter to this paper. Gratefully received. But what about Elizabeth Filkin and the basic infrastructure of Commons regulation? Well, we'll see. At least now you know that somebody's applied, and why. Because the commissioner is a bridge to you, not a stone wall at the end of a dark alley. Because you need to be involved and concerned. I promise - famous last words - to keep you informed.

7peterpreston

0Politics

There's strapping, bustling Jo Frost, sense and sensibility poured into a sensible suit. Dozy dads turned round in 30 minutes flat. Weepy mums dusted down or braced up. Appalling kids tamed on her "naughty seat". She is Supernanny incarnate (with male public school fantasies loosely attached). So why do I keep dreaming about the next TV series after Jo? Let's call it Supergranny, with Supernumerary Grandpa in tow. Supernan and Gramps have been auditioning for the job in Barcelona these past days, minding a three-child shop (six, four and two) while Mum and Dad were away on an Italian job for five nights. See Supernan getting six and four ready for school and a 40-minute commuting trail across town. Watch less-than-super Grumps deal somewhat irresolutely with two's breakfast. I should, perhaps, explain at this stage that Beatrice is pretty memorable as tiny two-year-olds go. Is it her great, dark Spanish eyes? Is it her habit of suddenly saying surprising things? ("Look, Grandpa, the sun is going down over the hill and the shadows are growing longer.") But, for the moment, it's only 7.15am and the sun has barely crawled out of bed yet. Six and four are eating their cereal peaceably in the living room, one eye on CBeebies, the other flitting occasionally floorwards as Supernanny puts their socks on. Beatrice, meanwhile, has clambered on to the kitchen sideboard and is ransacking cupboards. "Do you want Sugar Puffs or Coco Pops?" I say. She wants the Puffs. Clear instruction. So I pour them out into a blue plastic bowl. No!!! Not the blue bowl. The yellow bowl? No!!! The red bowl. This red bowl? No, the other red bowl!! And do you want milk or tea? Tea. No, not in the yellow cup, the red one (which seems oddly orange-coloured, but maybe the racket is turning us both colour-blind). Let's go and see CBeebies with Leo and Georgie, then. We troop next door - at which point it becomes clear that six and four are eating Coco Pops. The Sugar Puffs are duly renounced. It is Pops or nothing, or a bit more of a commotion. In the blue bowl or the red bowl? The reds are still on their winning streak. Supernumerary Gramps departs on the school trek with six and four. The bedraggled Pops float, uneaten, rejected with impunity, in a puddle of milk when I return an hour-and-a-half later. Now there are several things to say at this point. One is that Beatrice, like her brother, sister and our other five grandchildren, is a pearl beyond price. Family politics. Another is that, as I scrabble in assorted cupboards for bowls and Pops and Puffs, obeying ever-changing demands with a vacuous grin, I feel oddly like Michael, Tony and Charlie back home. Red bowls, blue bowls, yellow bowls, krispies, krunchies, munchies? Yes ma'am, just put your cross on this scrap of paper here. Politics as usual. But the one thing you can't do is call for sensible Jo, for this is an entirely different sort of show. Supernanny, of course, is formula TV down to the last kick and yowl. Scene one: desperate parents plead for a miracle. Scene two: Ms Frost whispers in their ear. Scene three: happiness is just a thing called Jo, jetting off to her new rescue act, leaving her trained agents of tranquillity behind. What happens next? There's always a brief line filed "a fortnight later" which claims that the miracle yet endures. And four months later? We're never told. But Supergranny and Gramps aren't in such wham-bang business. Their most precious gift is time. They want to come back again and again, so Jo is mostly total Frost. Are we in loco parents, required to do the full naughty-seat routine when Beatrice demands a large plate of prawns and noodles, sucks the prawns, ditches the spag and demands another ice cream? No: we're not parents. The parents are away. We've nil reason (Supergranny wisely says) for majoring on their absence. Why go around stirring up misery? Our role is to hold the ring, to make sure everyone has the cheeriest days possible and not to let things go to hell on a handcart (or the scooter Beatrice likes to whiz along the corridor on, prompting voluble Catalan gloom from the lady in the flat below). Is that an easy role? By no means. Skills learned across two decades of editing the Guardian don't wash with Beatrice when you have to explain that her sister has swigged the last Actimel. There's no one-hand or other-hand here, nor any firm prescription: only persuasion and distraction or humiliation. Supergranny is a lifetime show, not 30 minutes of brusque denouement. Supergran is being in charge, but not in charge, of leading but following, of lips bitten without demur, of diplomacy and self-abnegation. No, Endemol, you could never sell it - except as a 24-hour rolling stint on E4. Back home for Paxo and Howard and other delights, we have two more (nine and seven) of the eight stay overnight, watch TV from 7am as not-normally-allowed, eat pancakes and demand treacle sandwiches on the Jamie Oliver memorial beat. "Not golden syrup?" says their bristling Supermum. "The sugar drives them wild." No, it's black treacle ... you know, organic, healthy? Diplomacy cuts both ways. Beatrice, as it happens, is three this very morning. Goodbye to the terrible twos. Happy birthday, love. Time and wisdom and beautiful eyes are on your side. And meanwhile, just over there in CBeebies' corner, the leader of the Conservative party, wriggling on a naughty sofa, is putting thousands of refugees in his blue bowl for another Frost - and pushing them out to sea. Somehow, looking after kids feels like a nobler job too.

9royhattersley

0Politics

Twenty-five years ago, almost to the day, Jim Callaghan's government was defeated in a vote of confidence. The enforced general election that followed opened the way for the injustices and inequalities that we now call Thatcherism. In one sense, the anniversary is unimportant. The idea that there are moments in history when the world suddenly turns upside down is a romantic conceit. If the shot across the bridge at Concord had not echoed round the world in 1775, the American colonists would still have cried freedom. And it was Germany's long-held imperial pretensions, not the assassination at Sarajevo, that caused the first world war. But that late March evening back in 1979 at least symbolises the end of one era and the beginning of another. Now, we are told, it need never have happened. Labour whips had spent the previous week struggling to construct a House of Commons majority. I was deputed to convince two working-class Ulster Unionist MPs that Northern Ireland's interests would best be served by the government's survival. The mission was accomplished. But two other Ulster men, who normally supported Callaghan, defected for reasons that were lost in the mist of Celtic obscurity. As the division approached, it became clear that we were still one vote short. The agony of impending defeat was increased by the fact that we knew who that one vote was. Sir Alfred "Doc" Broughton, the 77-year-old MP for Batley and Morley, was mortally ill. Had he been brought to the Commons by ambulance and kept "in the precincts" while the division took place, he could have been "nodded through" the lobby and his vote recorded. But the journey might have killed him. I was unhesitatingly in favour of taking the risk. So - much to his credit - was he. His courage was, however, confounded by the compassion of the Labour leadership. We now discover that Walter Harrison, deputy government chief whip, approached Bernard Wetherill, his opposition counterpart, with the demand that the sick man be "paired". On radio last week, both men discussed what followed. The account of their negotiations will, to say the least, surprise those Labour MPs who lost their seats in the 1979 general election. Wetherill first insisted that "pairs" were never provided for votes of confidence. The government, if it wanted to survive, must marshal all its forces. Harrison replied that the refusal was a breach of faith. Anxious to defend his honour, Wetherill offered to sit out the division himself - simultaneously matching Broughton's absence and destroying his own career. Touched by the act of chivalry, Harrison told him that he could not accept such a sacrifice. Wetherill voted. The Labour government lost, and Margaret Thatcher became prime minister. Listening to the radio discussion, I got the distinct impression that the two men expected their audience to be impressed. Wetherill was undoubtedly justified in his rejoicing. He won. But Harrison had elevated his definition of gentlemanly conduct above the interests of the whole Labour party. His duty was to defeat the vote of confidence, not behave like a boy scout. Harrison is entitled to argue that the prime minister could have absolved him from the responsibility of choosing between conscience and duty. Enoch Powell had offered to lead all his Unionist friends into the government lobby in payment for the promise that a gas pipeline would be laid between Northern Ireland and mainland Britain. Jim Callaghan rightly refused to put the government up for auction. He went down on a point of principle. But a question still hangs over both men's decision. Did they matter anyway? Had either or both of them behaved differently - and the election been postponed until the autumn - would the rancid tide of Thatcherism have been held back? During the last week of the election campaign, Callaghan himself said that the country's mood had turned and that Labour's day was done. Harrison can say, in his own defence, that - even if the vote of censure had been lost - the inevitable would have only been postponed. Two great planks in Labour's policy platform had been destroyed. After the "winter of discontent", the trade unions no longer seemed an unequivocal force for good. And, by arguing in favour of the IMF agreement, we had all added to the calumny that high levels of public expenditure are the root of all evil. Perhaps there was an even deeper reason for Labour's rejection. Britain had lost confidence in collective and co-operative effort and begun to believe that individualism was the secret of success. Even if we had not held the election at a time of Mrs Thatcher's choice, we might have lost. But I still wish we had been given the chance to find out.

9royhattersley

0Politics

Think of what follows as a Christmas codicil to the splendid and well-deserved assault on columnists which was published in last Tuesday's Guardian. Charitably, Martin Kettle chose not to expose all the weaknesses of the trade. To the sins of ignorance and sloth, he might well have added pomposity - a failing which has been recently displayed in the almost universal complaint that the Liberal leader lacks gravitas. Charles Kennedy has attracted that indictment by performing as temporary chairman of Have I Got News for You? - a task which he discharged with commendable elan. His critics ought to realise that it is his essentially unstatesmanlike persona which makes him popular with the public. His party prospers in the opinion polls because no one could possibly imagine him as a minister - a class of person which is held in universal contempt. Other politicians could make themselves equally appealing by also insinuating themselves into conventionally unsuitable TV and radio shows. A quick glance at the Radio Times confirms that there are programmes which could easily accommodate everyone who has ever sat on either the government or opposition frontbench. Beginning with a sure-fire winner, the BBC could broadcast a special edition of Changing Rooms in which Gordon Brown described how he will redecorate 10 Downing Street as soon as he moves in. Tony Blair fronting Neighbours From Hell would then splendidly round off an evening of "lifestyle" viewing. To preserve party balance it would be necessary, the next day, for Theresa May to star in Have You Remembered What Not to Wear? followed by Michael Portillo in After They Were Famous. Unfortunately, none of the shadow cabinet would be eligible for an appearance in Friends or Band of Brothers. Alan Milburn might be regarded as a natural for Casualty. But that slot should be reserved for Peter Mandelson, the only secretary of state in history to become one twice in a single session. No doubt he thinks of himself as ideally suited to You've Been Framed. Milburn should host The National Lottery. Winners would be awarded a place in a foundation hospital, while the losers would be sent to wait for a bed in an understaffed adaptation of a poor law workhouse. Some of the possible programmes may not be regarded as suitable for transmission before the 9pm watershed. Young and impressionable minds should not, for example, be exposed to Dennis Skinner in The Life of Mammals or Stephen Byers making a brief appearance in They Think It's All Over. It might well be that the broadcasting commission refused to allow Paul "It's the Way I Tell 'Em" Boatang to appear in his Max Miller-style suits and perform his well-known imitation of that great comedian in Stars in Their Eyes. But, on the evidence of recent Newsnight appearances, he would be an ideal subject for Red Mist, "recalling how people react when they are pushed to breaking point." Gerald Kaufman already qualifies for membership of one of the teams in The Generation Game. If he stands for re-election again, he may justify an appearance on Antiques Roadshow. It could be followed by John Prescott in Scrapheap Challenge, though I would enjoy his contribution to The Adventure of English. Prescott certainly deserves a supporting role in a special transport department edition of Bitter Inheritance, starring Alistair Darling. A discussion between John Reid and Andrew Smith in Robot Wars could make an ideal end to the evening's viewing. We should not discount the possibility of radio providing politicians with the lift-off they so desperately need. Who could fail to be impressed by Clare Short in the Moral Maze - arguing for and against the propositions simultaneously - or Charles Clarke, in The Learning Curve, explaining why he condemns the retention of secondary selection in Kent but is prepared for it to continue prejudicing the prospects of that county's children. Finding a vehicle in which the leader of the opposition could be seen to best advantage is not an easy task. Obviously, he would be hopeless in The Premiership on Saturday - or, for that matter, any other day of the week. I have no doubt for which programme you, cynical readers, expect me to nominate him. You are wrong. I would no more suggest that Iain Duncan Smith appears on The Weakest Link than I would propose the leader of the Commons for Ready, Steady, Cook. Robin may well be both of those things, but we columnists have to avoid anything which is obvious and banal. Duncan Smith's natural home is I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. Merry Christmas

9royhattersley

0Politics

The New Labour leadership is at its least attractive when its members are at their most unctuous. And when the assurance, "you can trust me", is used as an obvious refuge from the necessity to conduct a rational argument, the politician who stands on his self-righteous dignity becomes absurd as well as an electoral liability. Unfortunately, there is no way of calculating how many votes John Reid lost for the government last week when he expressed the affront that he felt at the suggestion that, from time to time, the Downing Street press office attempts to manipulate the news. Doctor Reid - pretender to the title of Labour party chairman - was attempting to explain away the unfortunate comparison he had made between the security alert at London's Heathrow airport and the destruction of the World Trade Centre twin towers in which 3,000 people died. Part of his bluster was a refutation of the allegation that tanks at Heathrow were part of a publicity stunt designed to reconcile a reluctant nation to war. What sort of people, he asked, would exploit the tragedies of war in order to manipulate the press? One possible case immediately came to mind. The sort of people who had pretended that a research student's out-of-date thesis, speculating about the possibility of a terrorist attack, was an up-to-the-minute intelligence report predicting that one was likely to happen. And that was only one example of the dubious techniques which have been employed to justify almost every contentious aspect of government policy. That ministers behave in that way is now taken for granted by a nation which may still be offended, but is no longer surprised by revelations of dubious conduct. Twenty years ago, the valedictory comments of the retiring controller of the audit commission would have produced splash headlines in every national newspaper. Now the discovery that ministers tried to doctor his report to disguise the failure of PSI school building programmes only justifies half-a-dozen column inches. We all know that sort of thing goes on. The Gulf war has done no more than draw attention to a bad old habit. Last week, attempting to construct a moral justification for invading Iraq, the prime minister told the House of Commons that sanctions - as manipulated by Saddam Hussein - were denying essential vitamins to Iraq's children and vital drugs to Iraq's hospitals. The implication that opponents of the war are supporters of sanctions - or that without a war sanctions must continue - is clearly ridiculous. But it was not very different from the equally preposterous allegations he has made about the quality of teaching in this country - designed to justify changes in the organisation of schools which were intended to attract suburban votes rather than improve the quality of education. Saying whatever is convenient at the moment can only lead to eventual ridicule. Yet ministers still also say, "trust me". I recall the prime minister making that plea at the time of the Bernie Ecclestone "cash for cigarette advertising" scandal. And I remember writing in this column that I did not believe that Tony Blair had come to an improper agreement with the motor-racing industry. That is still my position. But I have no doubt that by repeating today my faith in his innate honesty, I have provoked half the readers of the column into wondering if I have gone soft or been bought off - buying off being part of the fashion of our time. Trust is indivisible. It cannot be enjoyed occasionally, or in part. Once it is lost, it is almost impossible for it to be regained. I retain my faith in Tony Blair as a basically honest politician. But the lapses by him, or the people around him, have (at very best) put that reputation in jeopardy. And it has put at risk the esteem in which thoroughly honest ministers - the Browns, the Darlings, the Hoons and the rest - are held. Five years ago, the prime minister could have won a single European currency referendum on the slogan, "Trust me". Not today. It is the lack of trust which has produced the slump in the Labour party opinion poll ratings - not opposition to war in itself, but a refusal to accept the government's word that war is necessary. People like me, open-minded six months ago, now ask themselves why, if there is a logical case for deposing Saddam - the possession of weapons combined with a tangible threat of their use - do ministers resort to such obviously phoney arguments? Doubts about a government's honesty would, normally, guarantee general election defeat, however great its majority. But the reduction in the prime minister's popularity has come at just the right moment to rescue Iain Duncan Smith. Why, his supporters will ask, change leader just as the revival begins? So, thanks to the ineptitude of the opposition, Labour will win again. Perhaps, in politics, it is better to be lucky than to be trusted. <BR>

9royhattersley

0Politics

I blame the Tory party. The Conservatives have become so hopelessly irrelevant that the old inhibitions on disagreement and dissent no longer apply. No one in government cares if the opposition asks, "If they cannot agree among themselves, how can they hope to run the country?" For everybody knows that the job is not going to be offered to Iain Duncan Smith. There is no incentive to avoid trouble. No matter how hard the boat is rocked, it is not going to sink. Six months of open warfare between the trade unions and the Labour party will not change the electoral history of Britain. There may even be young advisers in Downing Street who tell the prime minister that the more he dismisses the demands of organised labour (representing the working class) the greater will become the prospects of a permanent Blairite hegemony. We can be sure that sentiment will not bind him to the trade unions and we know that in terms of labour market policy he has more in common with Silvio Berlusconi than John Monks. So he will let the public sector disputes fester on, willing to see the breach widened before the wounds are healed by some sort of conciliation. But the trade unions have nothing to gain from the events of the last few months - threats of reduced subscriptions, strikes in public service industries and wild speeches from general secretaries who are not even Labour party members - becoming the pattern for the rest of the year and beyond. The prospect of New Labour creating the sort of society that they want to see depends on them treading softly and maximising their influence rather than intensifying their protests. No doubt most of their claims are justified. At a moment when the country stands poised on the brink of the European single currency, it is difficult to argue that British workers should accept every sort of integration except the harmonisation of industrial relations law. And, principles aside, an improvement in public sector pay is a practical necessity if the long-promised reform of public services is to evolve from rhetoric to reality. But none of the long-term items on the trade unions' agenda will be achieved by shock tactics. Social justice depends on a return to social democracy. An increasingly dissatisfied rank and file will continue to demand a change of course. Only the trade unions, working from inside the party, have the strength to bring it about. It was not Labour's constituency parties, passionately though they felt on the subject, that persuaded David Blunkett to replace the odious asylum seekers' voucher scheme with cash subsistence payments. It was the Transport and General Workers Union. Other changes have to be made in the same way. That is not easy for a union in which the general secretary owes his or her allegiance to one of the no-hope organisations on the wilder shores of politics and supports palpably silly resolutions that force ministers to resign their membership of the union. So the unions should work with the grain of the party. We are at the point in Labour's history where they have to make the choice that they once accused party activists of ducking - emotionally satisfying but essentially impotent gestures or real, but limited, influence. The alternatives they choose may well determine the future of radical politics in this country. I have argued in this column that a permanent separation, or even a formal divorce, from Labour might give the trade unions a freedom of action that they could use to their members' advantage. Some trade unions (out of frustration) and some newspapers (out of malice) now argue for that course. For the party the result would be ideological disaster, compounding the political errors the trade unions made in the late 1990s. By believing that all that mattered was a leader who could guarantee victory, they got the party into the New Labour mess. Now they have a duty to get the party out of it. The combined block vote could have prevented Tony Blair from emasculating the party conference and ignoring the men and women who would have argued for real Labour policies. They abdicated and must now make amends. There was method in his marginalisation. Voices that would have been raised against the part-privatisation of the public services, the gradual return to selective secondary education and the imposition of unwanted and unrepresentative parliamentary candidates, have been stilled. The objections to new Thatcherism are as strong as they ever were. But the new constitution does not allow them to be expressed by rank-and-file party members. The trade unions have an obligation to do the job for them. A summer of discontent will achieve nothing. It will take years of methodical and often tedious argument to set Labour back on the long and winding road to socialism. The unions should pay their subscriptions, vote their full strength and save the party they created.

9royhattersley

0Politics

Perhaps I have spent too much time recently reviewing books about British espionage operations during the second world war. Whatever the reason, I cannot help speculating about the possibility that Iain Duncan Smith has been "planted" on the Tories by the forces of reason and radicalism and instructed to make sure the Conservative party never forms a government again. Most of the British agents captured in occupied France were victims of over-confidence - aces of sabotage so blatant that their true identities became obvious. How else is it possible to explain the appointment of Barry Legg as the chief executive of the Conservative party? Mr Legg is a comparatively young man who became very rich very quickly. There is nothing to complain about in that. Indeed, we should be impressed that, even as he was acquiring his sudden wealth, he always made time for public service. Councillor Legg was chief whip of the Conservative group, which controlled Westminster local government under the leadership of Dame Shirley Porter. Unfortunately, Dame Shirley will not be a guest at the party to celebrate his appointment as Duncan Smith's right-hand man. She is in Israel, a fugitive from the district auditor, who requires her to pay a surcharge of 26.5m as the penalty for attempting to secure re-election by selling council houses to potential Tory voters. It would be quite wrong to find the Tories' new chief executive guilty by association with the perpetrators of what Lord Bingham, while he dismissed their appeal against the surcharge, described as "a deliberate, blatant and dishonest use of public power" - especially so since the district auditor absolved Legg of wilful misconduct. But he is entitled to more than a footnote in the history of the squalid affair. "I find as a fact," wrote the district auditor in his report, "that councillor Legg knew it was wrong for the council to exercise its powers in order to secure an increase in the number of likely Conservative votes in marginal wards. In such circumstances, a member has a duty to speak up." Is it possible that Duncan Smith - mesmerised by ex-councillor Legg's Euroscepticism - had forgotten his new colleague's role in the homes-for-votes scandal? Or does the new Tory leader regard turning a blind eye as an acceptable response to the discovery of politically advantageous wrongdoing? And - public morality aside - can the Tory leader really imagine that the other parties will forget the position Legg occupied when Dame Shirley organised the biggest political gerrymander in British history? Hundreds of council tenants were left in damp and decaying tenements because the houses that were rightfully theirs were allocated to Tory sympathisers. Believe me, Legg's tenure as chief whip on the Westminster city council will be mentioned during the next general election campaign. The Shirley Porter inheritance - hanging round Legg's neck like a slime-covered millstone - will hugely prejudice the Tory party's reputation with the general public. But the beauty of his appointment - at least from my point of view - is that he will also cause mayhem within what is left of the Tory party. I have no idea whether or not he was recruited in a way that violates the Tories' constitution. And I have no doubt Duncan Smith's associates are right to describe Theresa May - Legg's principal critic - as an "airhead". But, all that said, what benefit does Duncan Smith believe he derives from surrounding himself with UK Independence party sympathisers, who made life hell for John Major during the dying days of the last Tory government? Duncan Smith, who made his name by undermining his leader, relies on the cynical message of John Harrington's epigram, "Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason? For if it prosper none dare call it treason." But in modern politics - believe it or not - men and women retain a residual loyalty to old heroes. The brightest and best of the modern Tory party did not look upon Major with unqualified awe or admiration. They recalled that he was the Thatcherite leadership candidate whose mission was to save her party from One Nation Conservatism. But they still deeply resent the way a handful of fanatical anti-Europeans assiduously undermined him and brought down his government. Now, thanks to Duncan Smith, those rebels occupy more and more power within the party. It is as though, after 1979, Michael Foot had annointed the trade unionists who refused to bury the Liverpool dead. Duncan Smith was right, last Thursday, when he told the Today programme that the political debate is not about the state of the Tory party. But that is only because its prospects have already been written off. Legg's appointment merely confirms that all Duncan Smith now hopes for is the loyalty of the section of his party that exists outside mainstream British politics.

9royhattersley

0Politics

Tony Blair's willingness to "pay the blood price" that the special relationship with America requires goes down in history alongside Ted Heath's promise to "cut prices at a stroke" and Jim Callaghan's incredulous question: "Crisis. What crisis?" All are united by the fact that each of the infamous phrases was an intentional misquotation. But do not expect an angry Downing Street statement insisting that Tony Blair never used, nor could have used, such infelicitous language. For the notion, inherent in that ugly expression, is a distorted reflection of the prime minister's passion for solidarity with the US. That is why the fraudulent attribution was so clever and so damaging. Heath and Callaghan were traduced in the same way. The fabrication of the prices promise - probably intended at the time to make the Tory leader sound "dynamic" - was justified with the explanation that a Conservative research document predicted a rapid reduction in the inflation rate. The fabrication of the Labour prime minister's crisis question - certainly meant to damage him and his government - was defended with the excuse that, on return from a meeting with the president of France, he had suggested that a couple of days spent discussing ways to avoid nuclear annihilation put the breakdown of refuse collection into perspective. The newspapers had, they insisted, done no more than compress long statements into a suitable size for front-page headlines. In Tony Blair's case, the three-card trick was played rather differently. Michael Cockerell, interviewing the prime minister for a television "special", used the offending and offensive phrase in a question. Did standing shoulder to shoulder with America mean that "the blood price" had to be paid? The prime minister followed a reflex "yes" with the explanation that loyalty required "commitment" as well as "support and sympathy" - a sensible enough answer in a reasonable world. It is difficult, even with three days hindsight, to imagine what better reply he might have given. "I would not put it quite like that myself"? Pusillanimous. "Let us hope it will not come to that"? Evasive. "I pray that not a single British life will be lost"? Sanctimonious and transparently disingenuous. Blair was trapped. That is not to say that the trap was intentionally laid. I accuse Michael Cockerell of neither personal animus towards the prime minister nor political prejudice against the government. But there is still something fishy about the entire episode. "Blood price" is an idea that I associate with Sioux and Comanches as they appeared in Hollywood westerns in the days when native Americans were called Red Indians. It is not a word that is likely to spring to a sophisticated television interviewer's mind. Then the prime minister's apparent acceptance of Cockerell's savage language was reported in selected newspapers two days before the broadcast. I do not suggest that Tony Blair was the victim of a conspiracy. He suffered from what the BBC will regard as high quality marketing. Current affairs producers are as anxious to make the news as to report it. Reading about their programme in the papers is a mark of success. And if the confession or dramatic comment is made public before the broadcast, the notoriety helps to improve viewing figures. I guarantee that there will be BBC ratings fanatics who judge that the blood price story hit the jackpot. There are two lessons to be learned from the episode. The first is that television programmes - no matter how lofty their format and exalted their proclaimed purpose - are always looking for sensation. Tony Blair's balanced view on what he sees as the possible need to take military action against Iraq is, in televi sion terms, far less attractive than a gaffe, a slip of the tongue or, in this case, the endorsement of an extravagant expression. Yet paradoxically the trivialisation - for that is what the search for sensation usually amounts to - is sometimes justified. If we do join with America in the invasion of Iraq, British blood will be spilt. Politicians who positively want a war - a category in which I do not include Tony Blair - may not like that stark description of reality, but it is the duty of journalists to expose gory truth. There are many ways in which to describe President Bush's Middle East adventure - all of them, because of the heart-stopping implications of its consequences, likely to be polarised and prejudiced. The president himself calls it an attempt to deprive the world's worst leader of the world's worst weapons. Who could possibly object to that? We hear nothing from him about the body bags, crippled veterans or the death and destruction that will be suffered by thousands of innocent Iraqis. If we send troops to the Gulf, some of the bodies in bags will be British. That may be a price we have to pay. But it is right to face up to the hard consequences of "commitment". The prime minister was conned. But it was a fair cop.

9royhattersley

0Politics

Is it possible that 80% of the British population want the 2012 Olympic Games to be held in London? My scepticism about that particular finding is as much the result of my faith in the common sense of this happy breed as the consequence of my contempt for much of what goes on in the modern Olympiad. It is, at least for me, impossible to argue that the importance of snowboarding and figure skating is not winning but taking part. And, these days, the main objective of even the genuinely athletic events is not so much running fast and jumping high as making money. If there was a modern Roger Bannister who thought that qualifying as a doctor was his most important task, but still broke and held world records, I might be tempted to join the demand for a British bid. As things stand, I do not care which city hosts the international festival of exploitation. Nor should the British public - whatever their view on the character-building qualities of beach volleyball. For, wherever the games are held, rank-and-file sports enthusiasts will be left outside the stadium. Most of the seats will be reserved for dubious VIPs' "corporate hospitality" or sold by travel agents who market expensive package deals of flights, hotels and restaurants with a quick visit to the women's 200m final thrown in. For the rest of us, watching the games on television in our living rooms, it does not matter whether the tracks and fields are in London, Rome, Geneva or Reykjavik. The outstanding question is, are we prepared to pay between 2bn and 5bn for the privilege of broadcasting the Olympics from London? Officially, the government has still to come off the Olympic fence, but it is possible to judge which way it is wobbling by the figure it chooses to accept as the full cost. The Ove Arap estimate of 2bn, dismissed a month or so ago as far too low, is back in favour. So we must assume that, at the moment, Tony Blair wants the British bid to go ahead. One billion will be subscribed by the lottery and what is mysteriously called "other non-governmental sources" and Ken Livingstone has agreed that the other billion can be raised by a precept on the London council tax. Spread over 10 years, the addition to the tax bill will, it is hoped, be hardly noticed, quickly forgotten and barely resented. Manchester helped to pay for the Commonwealth Games and Sheffield accepted part of the International Student Games bill. According to David Blunkett, council leader at the time, Sheffield's price included the defeat of the Labour party in the local elections. This year the government sees bidding for the Olympics as a way of avoiding potential political damage. The International Olympic Committee will make its decision in July 2005 - two months after, or three months before, the most likely dates for the next general election. How much better to face the electorate after at least attempting to make Britain the centre of the sporting universe than risk the accusation that New Labour lacks the confidence or the courage to do what Los Angeles, Munich and Sydney have done? From out of the past comes the echo of John Prescott urging the cabinet to carry on the development of the dome. "If we can't do this, we can't do anything." The dome comparison is painfully apposite - right down to the collateral argument that the real object of the Olympic exercise is to redevelop neglected parts of London. And, if the government does bid for the 2012 Olympics, the progress of that second attempt to demonstrate its natural exuberance is likely to be no more successful than the first. Costs will escalate when it is too late to pull out. Private backers will lose their nerve, so the Treasury will have to choose between subsidy and national humiliation. An idea that was conceived as proof that Britain is a "can do" society will turn into the opportunity for critics to attack a "can't do" government. While pondering the objective merits of an Olympic bid, the government thought it right to consult not one but three focus groups. All of them were unanimous in the belief that the government should go ahead, but none of them was sure why. Focus groups are "snapshots" - glimpses of a moment which do not even claim to remain accurate pictures when it passes. Nor do they aspire to present their participants with complicated questions such as, "Do you find something pathetic about a nation feeling that it has to demonstrate its vitality?" But the answer to that question must be "yes". It is countries in decline - see Edward Gibbon - that invent proof of their youth and vigour. Mature democracies get on with the everyday business of being peaceful, progressive and prosperous. Britain should have enough self-confidence to do the same.

9royhattersley

0Politics

All the newspaper metaphors had the sort of literary associations that can be recognised by people who have not read many books. First he was TS Eliot's mystery cat - no more than an excuse to write that whenever the prime minister needs helping out of a jam, in the manner of Macavity, Gordon Brown's not there. Then he was said to be like the dog that aroused Sherlock Holmes' interest and suspicion because it did not bark. Comparisons with Shergar, the disappearing thoroughbred, were only prevented by the near certainty that, when the next big Labour party leadership race is run, the chancellor of the exchequer will win at a canter. Attempts to discover if he was asked to speak up for Tony Blair during the bizarre debate about the proper treatment of the Queen Mother's corpse were dismissed with the weary implication that there was no point in Downing Street issuing an invitation which was certain to be refused. And there is no doubt that Brown's regular detractors spread the word that, if the Treasury is not directly involved in a fiasco, there is no hope of the chancellor coming to the aid of the party. But lofty disdain for the trivia of government makes Gordon Brown Labour's most bankable asset. One day even his most critical colleagues will feel only gratitude and relief that the worst that can be said about him is that he possesses a puritanical determination to distinguish between the deserving and the undeserving poor. William Ewart Gladstone said that, in politics, things are best done by those who believe in them. It is hard to imagine the intellectually fastidious Gordon Brown arguing with any conviction that the idea of the prime minister walking down Whitehall to greet the Queen Mother's coffin emanated from the foreign secretary's discovery that the sun was shining and that Her Majesty's ministers would enjoy the fresh air. If he was the sort of man who willingly repeated the official line on Newsnight, he would just be another run-of-the-mill party politician. After all, we never read predictions that John Reid will be the next prime minister. Nobody who recalls the grace with which he faced his daughter's death or heard the eulogy which he delivered at Donald Dewar's funeral can doubt that there is a human being inside Gordon Brown's invariably charcoal grey suit. But his addiction to work and the certainty that what he is doing at the moment is more important than anything that occupies anyone else, does make him a difficult colleague. It also attracts the criticism that his single-mindedness is self-centred. Had the consolation notes to recent ministerial rejects been signed by any other minister, they would not have rated even a gossip column mention. But we all assume that Gordon Brown does everything on purpose. No doubt the next leadership election is always at the back of his mind. And he does not seem to realise he is already close to invincible. Yet he persists in making progress toward the summit of the greasy pole on his own terms. A couple of weeks ago Gordon Brown gave the Aneurin Bevan Memorial Lecture. The chairman, Geoffrey Goodman, once the doyen of labour correspondents and still an authority on Labour politics, described the speech as "what the party has been waiting for since 1997". Most members will have to go on waiting. No text was available. The chancellor spoke from extended notes. A member of the audience believed that had the lecture been widely reported, hundreds of party members, tempted to resign in disillusion, would have stayed to support Gordon Brown. As Mark Antony almost said, ambition should be made of more assiduous stuff. Eventually, after much prompting and the chancellor's insistence that he did the job himself, the notes were made into continuous prose and one newspaper thought them sufficiently important to be given some late attention. However, on the day before publication Stephen Byers resigned. All available space was needed for the obsequies and the ministerial reshuffle which followed. Gordon Brown said not a word on either subject. And quite right too. What has the government gained by John Prescott's allegation that Byers was stabbed in the back or, for that matter, what advantage has been achieved by David Blunkett's suggestion that the newspapers are on the verge of lunacy? Gordon Brown's belief that he has better things to do than slug it out with the tabloid newspapers is an immense encouragement to people who think that politics should be a battle of ideas not images. God willing the spasm of playground politics has now ended. If there is another outbreak of juvenilia, the government in general and Tony Blair in particular have the strongest possible vested interest in keeping Gordon Brown above the fatuous battle.

9royhattersley

0Politics

I am absolutely certain that, sometime during last year, Norman Baker - the Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes - exposed what he regarded as a political scandal and that, in consequence, he appeared on television for several consecutive days. As I cannot recall what the so-called cause clbre concerned, I assume that it did not have a lasting effect on the life of the nation. But it certainly had an effect on Mr Baker. He developed a taste for unearthing impropriety. Last week, the Sussex Savonarola dug out details of the prime minister's Egyptian holiday. The mining metaphor is not altogether appropriate. For what Mr Baker believed to be dirt was buried in the public pages of the Register of Members' Interests. Tony Blair had, therefore, already announced that the Cairo government had paid part of the cost of the holiday in Sharm el-Sheikh and that he had made a donation of an equivalent amount to an Egyptian charity. By denouncing the arrangement as "cheapening the office of prime minister", Mr Baker cheapened the whole business of politics. Politicians who are determined to say something, but have nothing of value to say, have developed the unhealthy habit of accusing their opponents of corruption, certain that - justified or not - their allegations will be reported. Last week some silly ass suggested that, because she lives in Downing Street, Cherie Blair offended against the rules of propriety by seeing her professional colleagues and clients in her own home. It is all part of the degeneration of politics from arguments about conflicting policies to claims about rival personalities. Last week's example of that unhappy trend was the revelation - soon after the government had announced its intentions to relax the gaming laws - that the Labour party had accepted a donation of 100,000 from Peter Coates, the owner of a company called Provincial Racing. All the commentators could think of was the possibility that the gambling free-for-all was intended to repay Mr Coates's generosity. The real explanation is less sinister but equally disturbing. Indeed to me, it is rather worse than "cash for legislation". A corrupt government might change its ways. One which has abandoned its philosophy is more difficult to rehabilitate. I have absolutely no doubt that Mr Coates's gift had no direct effect on the government's decision to allow gambling of every sort to spread like an infection through Britain. New Labour is not corrupt; its collective sin is the combination of arrogance and naivety which encourages the belief that the world is full of rich men who want to make a selfless contribution to the "project". When a donation is handed over, I doubt if the idea that it was written out in the hope of favours passes through the recipient's mind. But I am equally sure that the man who signed the cheque hoped for something in return. That was certainly the case when the Tories used to complain that the trade unions were Labour's paymasters. Unions raised the political levy and used it to finance a political party which shared their aims and sometimes legislated explicitly on their behalf. That was both legitimate and laudable. Labour had been founded to support their interests and defend the welfare of their members. Even without their subventions, Labour would have initiated policies of which they approved. The party was neither bought nor sold. There is no legitimate complaint against a vicar who accepts a large donation to his church restoration from a regular worshipper within his parish. If, on the other hand, a payment is made in recognition of the incumbent changing faith - against the wishes of his congregation - the transaction may not be financially corrupt, but it is certainly morally dubious. The payment is being made as a reward for apostasy. The rector of Downing Street will say that his conversion is genuine - or perhaps that he never believed in the old religion and stumbled into the wrong church by mistake. That is a subject worth reasoned argument. It will not happen while cheap headlines suggest that business is bribing the government. It is not. The payments are a reward for the abandonment of socialism. The companies pay up, as the unions once did, because they think that New Labour is on their side. And, of course, they are right. When Mr Blair cooperates with Silvio Berlusconi to demand a more flexible labour market in Europe, he is making the CBI feel as warm towards him as the TUC felt towards Labour leaders when they promised to repeal the Trades Disputes Act. Yet New Labour's alliance with industry is hardly, if ever, discussed in ideological terms. Indeed, it only breaks to the surface of most newspapers when it can - usually wholly illegitimately - be described as sleaze. There are just too many Norman Bakers about.

9royhattersley

0Politics

We all accept that Christmas has become the feast of Mammon - the season of goodwill to all shopkeepers when normally prudent families worship the baby born in the manger by distributing tawdry gifts they have seen advertised on television. Now a new red letter day has appeared in the commercial calendar. Good Friday is the beginning of the festival of furniture. Real worshippers at the shrine of "inspirational leather and fabric sofas" may argue that the celebration of settees, chairs and beds is a movable feast. For every week there are television commercials advertising specially reduced prices that are available only for the next few days. As one offer ends another, miraculously, begins. But this Easter we are witnessing what amounts to a furniture crusade. Tabloid newspapers have joined forces with commercial television companies to advertise Harvey's Easter Collection, Courts' Easter Weekend, Multiyork's Easter Sale, Laura Ashley's Easter Weekend of Made to Measure Furniture and dfs, where "everything is half-price this Easter". Other companies are en fte but make no mention of the end of holy week. They all have one thing in common. They offer their potential customers extraordinary terms. The dfs offer is typical. "Take four years' free credit and pay nothing for the first year." Unless dfs (a "licensed credit broker") loses money on the lending side of its business, someone is paying interest on the capital which finances the deals. So we must assume that another little explanation - alongside "subject to acceptance" - might have been added to the advertisement. It would read "debt charges included in the price". But the company can legitimately claim (in rather larger print): APR 0%. So it is possible, today, to acquire a "corner group in navy blue leather, previous price 1,798" for 897, sit on it for a year without paying a penny and then dispose of the outstanding debt at the rate of 24.91 a month until April 2008. Say what you will about blue leather, the offer is clearly what, in the days of old-fashioned hire purchase, we called "easy terms". Indeed, the terms are a great deal too easy for the health of the economy. Ever since the Tories bought the 1987 general election with an orgy of debt deregulation, Britain has borrowed far beyond its collective means. Low interest rates - part of the government's admirable and wholly successful campaign to secure full employment - removed the fiscal incentive to save first and buy later. The national psyche is represented by the trade union chant of 20 years ago: "What do we want? Everything! When do we want it? Now!" The SCS offer, "Be yourself for less", might be the motto of our time. The idea of credit controls is so alien to government thinking that it took some time - admittedly on a Good Friday - and two immensely obliging information officers to determine whether we are allowed, under EU regulations, to return to the old system. Personal credit is the responsibility of the DTI, but its implications for fiscal policy (and what we used to call demand management) naturally remain within the Treasury. Both eventually agreed that ministers could, if they wanted to, reduce the amount of borrowing by setting out minimum deposits and maximum repayment periods. But this is the age of the individual. We all have an inalienable right to ruin ourselves and damage the economy. The furniture trade is only the padded end of the credit wedge. Its success is very largely dependent on the existence of various forms of lending - bank loans, credit cards and the several conveniences which enable reckless buyers to pay their 24.91 a month to dfs and still discharge all the other careless liabilities which they have taken on. It may well be that were such credit outlets to be restricted, the economy would collapse like a punctured balloon. But payments as easy as those offered by dfs make me uneasy. My objection to credit has nothing to do with personal morality. I left university with an unauthorised overdraft and immediately made hire purchase agreements to buy the first furniture I ever owned. I was sometimes late with the payments. And, when I bought a car, I borrowed the deposit from a more affluent friend. Sometimes I speculate about what would have happened in the early swinging 60s if cheap and easy loans had been as freely available as they are today. Television advertisements provide a clue to the answer. A new industry has sprung up within the financial services sector. The companies which make it up "refinance" debt - sometimes by taking the debtor's house as security. They advertise their wares on late-night television. Satisfied customers sing the system's praises. They were, they say, oppressed by their liabilities until they discovered the advantages of borrowing one big loan. Casualties of the system never appear.