Ken Clarke, 'Kind of Blue'

An accomplished, and at times very interesting, political memoir from a politician who said he would never write a memoir. No surprises here, but why would there be, from one of the few politicians of any party who is instantly recognisable by the public, and whose views are well known by everyone – or so we the public think. There is a bit too much I Was Right All Along, but you always get that with political memoirs. Ken Clarke seems, it emerges from this book, to have been oddly distant from most of his family for most of his life. His marriage, he says, was a long and happy one. He mentions outings with his son during the latter’s boyhood, and says family holidays were always enjoyed, but nothing more. This is contrary to the public image Ken Clarke has always had, but then this is true for almost all politicians.

He is not perhaps a very complex political thinker, but complexity is not a virtue in a politician. He is not dull, and dullness is most certainly a vice in one. He is an admirer of Iain Macleod, who was Foreign Secretary at the end of Empire, and who was criticised, Clarke says, for giving the British Empire away, which he says had to be done “if we were to avoid the post-colonial wars in which the French had been immersed”. Well, I guess. But we did have them, in Malaya and Cyprus, and Burma wasn’t exactly a bed of roses, and there was that little matter of Partition in India, and – oh, please yourselves.

On Europe, of course, Ken’s position is clear and well known, and he has never wavered from it. (Not always a good sign in a potential political leader: ladies and gentlemen, I give you Jeremy Corbyn). Ken Clarke is the go-to pro-European Tory, and that being so it is perhaps surprising that he has been in Tory governments as much as he has. Here at least he has the benefit of clarity, and it is welcome: “People had been told that the Community was intended to be a free-trade area only, without any political commitments. This is wholly without foundation; a total fiction.” Thanks, Ken. That’s how I remember it too.

He can be patronising, especially to women: the In Place of Strife debate “did succeed in bringing the best out of Mrs Castle as a parliamentary performer”, which seems at best unfair to Barbara.

The title, ‘Kind of Blue’, is a splendid one for the memoir of a jazz-loving Tory who has often seemed semi-detached from the party. But of course he never was so. He was, and remains, a true Tory. Another reviewer has remarked that his memoir shows Clarke, surprisingly to the reviewer, to “lack empathy for the poor”. Well, of course he does. He’s a Tory, innit.

“The Thatcher government never cut public spending on any mainstream public service such as health, education or welfare”, he proudly asserts. If he says so, and in monetary terms I am quite sure that this is true. But it is not how it felt at the time.

He can be waspish. He appears to have got on rather well personally with Margaret Thatcher, despite their sometime differences and their avowed occasional stand-up rows. He says his losses of temper on those occasions were acting, as his temperament is too equable for them to have been real. And also that “Margaret Thatcher was always very lucky in her political opponents.”

On the NHS (after all he was Health Secretary for quite a long time), he says “there would be riots if we were plunged back now into an NHS that looked as it did in the 1980s”. Probably true. But that would also arguably be true of a lot of other aspects of society in the 1980s – when there were quite a lot of actual riots. But for myself, having lived outside the UK now for over 10 years and experienced a health service which is probably the best in the world (the French), I’m quite surprised nobody riots now at the abominable care they receive.

He points out, perhaps rather irritatedly, that his shoes are not Hush Puppies, but are hand made by Crockett  and Jones in Northamptonshire. Shoes are often an issue in politics (leaving aside the current prime minister) – I had some yellow Clarks suede desert boots I was rather fond of at one time when I was an MP, and used to wear them when out knocking doors as they were comfortable and took me many miles with never an itch or a rub or a blister, and was roundly castigated by the local LibDems for wearing them. I was never quite sure why. I always liked them. I wish I still had them now.

A word on Ken Clarke the politician – we were colleagues in the House, and although we never had anything much to do with each other he always knew my name when we passed in the corridor – and why should he know the name of a humble and obscure Labour (then in government) back-bencher? Well, because politics. Fibromyalgia is a health issue which is a very severe and debilitating one for those who suffer, and there are many local support groups for sufferers, usually membered by the sufferers themselves and their immediate families. I was often surprised by the energy and fortitude displayed by the fibromyalgia lobby, this being the case. The two strongest local fibromyalgia support groups in England were in Reading (which I represented) and in Nottingham (which Ken did). I therefore found myself chairing the group, and most of its meetings. True to form, the other Reading MP, Martin Salter, trumpeted in the Reading media that he was “spearheading” the lobby for fibromyalgia sufferers. However, Salter was so rarely in the House, choosing to spend most of his time in the Reading constituency that I and not he represented (the reasons for that are a matter for mental health practitioners rather than for politicians I fancy) that he did not actually attend any of the meetings. Ken Clarke also rarely attended, but he had better excuses, with front-bench and other responsibilities Mr Salter has never had. Whenever he could not attend he would put “on the board” (an actual pinboard at the time that MPs could use to send each other direct written communications) for me any communications from his constituents he thought relevant for the meeting, always with a handwritten compliment slip from Ken. Good politics, man. The other Nottingham MPs were similarly assiduous, but it was only from Ken that I got the “on-the-board” letters – and these are delivered personally to the Member addressed, by the House badge messengers, rather than going through the internal mail system office to office.

Of his time at the Ministry of Justice, which seems not to have been a very happy one, he notes that all three of his challengers on law and order matters, namely David Cameron’s erstwhile director of communications Andy Coulson, Michael Howard’s former special adviser at the Home Office Patrick Rock, and former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks, have faced criminal charges: Of the three, only Brooks was acquitted: Coulson did time and Rock has been convicted on child pornography charges. I suspect a very sweet moment or moments for Ken.

He doesn’t have that much to say about the Brexit referendum, perhaps wisely. His position is well known, and has always been clear. Always an advantage for a politician. He does describe David Cameron’s decision to hold the referendum, which he says he discovered by reading about it in the newspapers in January 2013, as “reckless and irresponsible”. Which, of course, it was.

Ken Clarke doesn’t have much to say about the illness and death from cancer (lymphoma) of his wife Gillian. Perhaps rightly. He does say that when she died, in July 2015, a few hours after a bedside gathering of himself, his son and daughter, and his granddaughter, “We were devastated by the loss but I think that I was made closer to my children and grandchild by our bereavement.” Not much of a loving tribute to Gillian, I churlishly surmise. And is it my nasty suspicious mind, but WHAT does he mean by this: “I had lost my lifelong companion and beloved wife who had been so important to me in her more active days.” Is there more to come? Does Ken suspect there is?

He ends, self-importantly, with the Hansard of his speech in the Brexit debate. But then again, why shouldn’t he?

Ken Clarke is a kind of National Treasure. He knows this, and has built himself up to it over the decades. I’m not sure if he meant to shore up that image with this memoir. Perhaps he doesn’t care. It’s an interesting read, and sometimes a very entertaining one. I am sure it will be cited, in years to come. I am not sure it will ever be a political science text or a sourcebook. But then, why should it?

Gibraltar near Spain

as John Lennon once sang. A very long time ago. I visited Gibraltar once, also rather a long time ago, and I remember that the Gibraltar government spokesperson continually referred to members of the delegation I was with as having "flown down" to Gibraltar - i.e not having gone in through Spain. One or two members of the delegation did in fact choose to enter Gibraltar through Spain, to demonstrate that they believed Gibraltar was part of Spain. But they could only do this because both Spain and the UK were, at the time (1998) members of the EU and thus obliged to keep their borders with other member states open. Before that, in the 1970s and 1980s, when the UK was a member of the EU but Spain had not yet joined, there was harassment by Spain at the border, with consequent difficulties for the Gibraltar economy. Before that, when neither the UK nor Spain had yet joined the EU, the border was blockaded and there was regular sabre-rattling by Spain. But at no time even then did Spain actually try to occupy Gibraltar militarily by force. They didn't dare.

As soon as the UK formally leaves the EU Spain can close its land border with Gibraltar and also blockade it by sea. The UK would then have to respond in some way, in the interest of the British people of Gibraltar, who have as we know chosen to remain British whenever their opinion has been asked. However, that does not mean war. One Spanish soldier's boot across the border, or one shot fired into Gibraltar from a Spanish gun, would however oblige the UK to retaliate on behalf of its citizens. As Michael Howard said yesterday, Theresa May as prime minister would have no choice. This is simply how it is. Spain knows this very well. Why has Spain never tried to take back Gibraltar (ceded to Britain in perpetuity by the Treaty of Utrecht) by force before? And what happened when another state occupied a British territory, 35 years ago this week? Some of us remember the Falklands.

I make no remark on the merits of all this, or indeed of the Treaty of Utrecht. Bismarck I think it was who coined the term Realpolitik. 

John Campbell, 'Roy Jenkins, A Well-Rounded Life'

this has been, kind of, the political biography of the moment. Everyone's attention was drawn to it by the reviews noting that Tony Crosland was a gayer in his young days (maybe people knew that, but it was before my time), and for a while turned Woy that way too. But there's a lot more to the book than that. Campbell sets out his stall at the beginning by saying that he was and remains an admirer of Jenkins. Fair enough. And that he got access to letters and papers and so on, and cooperation from Roy's widow, Dame Jennifer Jenkins. (I like that even after Roy went to the Lords she preferred to use the title she had won in her own right). You therefore get some tired LibDemmery early on, "ill-advised attempts to play the world's policeman" and so on. He never goes as far as Blair-hating, because of Jenkins' documented admiration for Blair and the considerable work they did together, on electoral reform, but also, and perhaps more significantly, the mentoring work Roy did with Tony before 1997.

Denis Healey is quoted, splendidly: "Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your Liberals, and possibly your Social Democrats!" This was over Finland in World War II. Healey was a communist at the time. Campbell wonders if Healey remembered those words in 1981.

Jenkins did his officer training at Alton Towers! Not then the place it is now, but a genteel establishment of tea rooms and pleasure gardens. There's a lot of good social history nuggets like this.

Campbell is well edited, only a few infelicities spotted, though he does misuse metaphors rather irritatingly: "the socialist millennium ... had run into the sand." Grrr.

Both Roy Jenkins and Harold Wilson were committed to a European single currency, with the UK being part of it, in the 1970s, and had discussions to this effect with their French counterparts once de Gaulle had packed up his veto and taken it back to Colombey-Les-Deux-Eglises. Did you know that? I didn't. Pity it didn't come to anything.

By the time Jenkins wrote his memoirs, in 1990-1, he had (rightly) taken the view that political parties "cannot resist returning obsessively to the issues that most divide them". This seems both percipient and prescient.

I did not like Roy Jenkins. He was easy to mock, at least from the late 1970s on, with his drawling artificial accent and his speech impediment and his fondness for claret. I did not like what I saw then, and still do, as the "Gang of Four"'s betrayal of the Labour cause, enabling the Thatcher years and everything that meant. It was not attributable to the Gang of Four that the Labour Party failed to implode, moved towards the centre, and gave us the Blair years. But Roy Jenkins was an interesting politician. Socially liberal, when not all government ministers were, even in the late 1960s - his numerous affairs, tolerated by his wife, were another matter, and perhaps typical of the times - an intellectual who was not as clever as he thought he was, pompous and affected, but he held the great offices of state, and made a difference. He failed to take out Harold Wilson and become Prime Minister, which he thought ever afterwards was the greatest political mistake of his life. I disagree. It does not seem (and Campbell's book is very interesting on this) that it would have been possible for Jenkins to do it. The numbers simply were not there. Well, we'll never know. But I am a Wilson woman, and remain so. If anything, this book reinforced me in that.

The votes on Europe, the "Common Market," as it was known at the time. (I voted yes in the referendum). Jenkins said, "People didn't want to say, when asked in the future, what did you do in one of the great divisions of history, 'I abstained'." No, of course they didn't, and don't. But this is rhetoric. Any MP who has abstained on one of the crucial votes in parliamentary history (Iraq 2003, anyone? So-called rebel Martin Salter, anyone?) is going to want to cover up the fact. And everyone else is going to throw it back at them. It is routine to note that MP X voted against reducing the age of consent, that MP Y was a rebel on Europe, and so on.

Campbell reminds us that when Dick Taverne, a sometime associate of Jenkins', was deselected in Lincoln (for voting against the whip, not with it as it would be today), and stood as an "independent" candidate calling himself "Democratic Labour", he soundly defeated the official Labour candidate, Margaret Jackson, who later became Margaret Beckett. She hasn't reminded the world of that fact in more recent years.

Interesting times. An interesting man and an interesting politician. A miner's son from South Wales who went to Oxford and reinvented himself as a claret-swilling posh bloke. Er, not quite. His father had been a miner, sure, but quite early on became a full-time union official and councillor, and became an MP (Arthur Jenkins) and even a government minister.

This isn't a great book, but it's a fascinating one, and it's one of the best things I have read on the history of the left (well, the mainstream left, anyway) in Britain in the 20th century.

I have decided I would like Roy Jenkins' death. He lived into his eighties, although he had developed health problems linked with fine eating and fine drinking. His wife came into the bedroom one morning and asked what he would like for breakfast. He said he would have two lightly poached eggs. She went away to the cook them, and when she came back with them he was dead.

they wanna be elected!

The Labour Party has chosen its candidates for the European elections. Party members are to be given the opportunity to vote on the order in which they would like the names to appear on the list. This is, I believe, radical, and is not to be encouraged. We can't have ordinary party members getting ideas and expressing opinions, Ed - do buck your ideas up. Anyway,  here is the list of names for the South-East, as publicised by LabourList. As I said, we don't know yet in what order they will appear. But oh, what fun it's going to be. Spot anyone familiar?

South East

New candidates
Anneliese Dodds
Maggie Hughes
Karen Landles
Farah Nazeer
Emily Westley
Phil Bloomer
John Howarth
Del Singh
James Swindlehurst
James Watkins

that hokey cokey idea

we Europeans know all about that. Among the more famous Europeans are the popular German beat combo known as Kraftwerk, and here they are (kind of) on this very notion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwaxWoJPUC0

Where was I? *wipes eyes* Ah yes, Mr Cameron and his in-out-shake-it-all-about referendum notion. Plenty of balderdash has been written about it in the last day or two, including this from the unlamented, barely literate former Reading councillor John Howarth, prop. Public Image Limited (remember "Your Better Off With Labour"?) who calls the proposal for a referendum a "fundamental failure of leadership" and then goes on to say it is a good thing. Sort of. Barely coherent, inverted pyramid of piffle. Well, I am not a fan of referendums, thinking that peoples elect governments, who should then get on and govern and not keep stopping to ask "Am I doing OK?" Cammo's proposal is clearly party before country, but he has never pretended it is not. Howarth suggests that one of the Great European Powers might say "non", which has of course happened before. But "non" to what? Angie from Berlin has already offered talks. "Non" in a context like this is hardly Francois Hollande's style - as Howarth would know if he had the first clue about contemporary French politics and could lurch out of the 1980s for long enough to see some sense. Poland? I fancy not. Whatever next?" Maggie, Maggie, Maggie! Out, out, out!" Do me a favour.

It seems to me that the referendum proposal is a stroke of genius on Cammo's part. He himself has already said he will campaign for a Yes vote, as of course he must, anything else being lunacy. Ed Miliband has been wrongfooted and now looks a total arse. And at the same time Cammo has bought off the more barking elements in the Tory associations up and down the land (and maybe they won't notice gay marriage in all the excitement of biffing Johnny Foreigner) and mollified some of his relatively sensible back-benchers who think they might lose to UKIP - oh, and has pulled the rug from under UKIP itself, a good thing for British politics given that UKIP are nearly as racist as the Greens - so what's not to like? And maybe, just maybe, as a result there will be a UK government, sooner rather than later, that is pulling in one direction. Well, I say well done Davey-boy, and it would almost be worth going back to live in the UK to have a vote in the referendum. A yes vote, naturally.

General de Gaulle and Marshal Petain
 

Poland talks to the UK like a Dutch uncle

Radek Sikorski, the Foreign Minister of Poland, has a piece in The Times which gives the UK a right talking-to on Europe in general and the EU in particular.  He describes himself as a Thatcherite free-marketeer, and that is not me, but he talks a great deal of sense.  I've reproduced it in full below, as a link would bring you up against the paywall, and to encourage you all to read it.  It's written very well too - I know Sikorski's English is excellent, but if he wrote this himself, and I am sure he did, he puts most native anglophone pundits and politicians to shame.

It’s interesting what happens on your first day as Foreign Minister. Helpful officials flutter around you like butterflies. One produces a secret red file marked “How to be a Foreign Minister". Inside are papers on the do’s and don’ts of office. But decades of bureaucratic experience are best summed up in the immortal lines of Yes, Prime Minister: “Once you start interfering in the internal squabbles of other countries, you’re on a very slippery slope. Even the Foreign Secretary has grasped that!"




It is in that fine spirit that I mean to interfere recklessly in the UK’s internal affairs. I want to offer some thoughts on a subject of considerable British sensitivity: EU membership. And I want to try to change some minds.



Let me be clear where I am coming from. I am Polish, from the Solidarity generation that helped to bring down the Soviet empire. I have lived in the US and am a fervent believer in free markets. Lady Thatcher — may she live for ever — acknowledges me in her book Statecraft. In other words, I tick every box required to be a lifelong member of the Eurosceptic club. But I believe in the the modern European project. And Poland will do its utmost to help it to succeed.



Several myths about Britain and the EU need to be dispelled.



Myth No 1 Britain’s trade with the EU is less important than its trade with the outside world.



Fact In 2011 the UK trade deficit with China was £19.7 billion. You ran a deficit with Russia, too. Roughly half of UK exports go to the EU. The UK has until recently traded more each year with Ireland than with Brazil, Russia, India and China put together. Trade growth with new EU members is even more dynamic. Between 2003 and 2011 British exports to Poland increased threefold.



Myth No 2 The EU forces Britain to adopt laws on human rights that are contrary in spirit to British tradition.



Fact These rulings come from the European Court of Human Rights, which is not part of the EU but part of the Council of Europe, a noble British creation that pre-dates the EU.



Myth No 3 UK is bankrupting itself by funding Europe.



Fact The monstrous EU budget is about 1 per cent of the GDP of all EU members; UK public spending is nearly 50 per cent of Britain’s GDP. Your annual net contribution of £8 billion- £9 billion is similar to France’s and less than Germany’s. That is less than £15 per UK citizen. Moreover, some of this money comes home. UK companies have profited enormously from EU cohesion-fund investments in Central and Eastern Europe. That improved infrastructure benefits UK exporters: higher prosperity in those member states mean new markets for the UK.



The UK Government estimates that every household “earns" between £1,500 and £3,500 every year thanks to the Single Market. That is between five and fifteen times the UK’s net budget contribution. It’s a bargain.



Myth No 4 The UK is drowning in EU bureaucracy.



Fact Yes, 33,000 people work for the European Commission, serving an entire continent. But more than 82,000 people work for HM Revenue & Customs alone. Spain has almost three million bureaucrats. In contrast to any of its members, the EU is a slimmed-down operation.



Myth No 5 The UK is drowning in EU legislation and Brusssels directives.



Fact We all have a good laugh when we hear about bendy bananas or euro-sausages. But these are not the fault of the European Commission. Usually they are proposed by member states trying to protect their former colonies or their national products.



Directives are not Brussels diktats, but regulations that British officials have agreed, approved and signed off. In any case, law inspired by Europe accounts for only 6.8 per cent of primary legislation passed by your Parliament.



Myth No 6 The European Commission is a hotbed of socialism.



Fact Whether on Open Skies or business subsidies, the EU has helped to dismantle national monopolies and stopped national politicians subverting competition rules.



Myth No 7 The EU stops hardworking Britons working longer hours than feckless continentals.



Fact The average Pole works 40.5 hours a week. The average Spaniard 38.1. The average for all the EU27 is 37.2. The average for the UK? 36.2.



Those are the myths. Now let’s look at the arguments. Because Britain’s market is too valuable for the rest of the Continent to ignore, Eurosceptics say, Britain could negotiate a trade deal that preserved all the advantages of the single market without any of the costs of membership.



Don’t count on it. Many states would hold a grudge against a country that had, in their view, selfishly left the EU. While you account for about 11 per cent of the rest of EU trade, 50 per cent of your total trade is with the EU. No prizes for guessing who would have the upper hand in negotiations.



Any free trade agreement would have a price. In exchange for access to a single market of 500 million people, Norway and Switzerland make big contributions to EU cohesion funds. They also have to adopt EU standards without any say in how they are written. At the moment, Norway’s net contribution to the EU budget is higher, per capita, than Britain’s.



Britain’s leaders must decide once again how best to use their influence in Europe. The EU is an English- speaking power. The Single Market was a British idea. A British commissioner runs our diplomatic service. You could, if only you wished, lead Europe’s defence policy.



But please don’t expect us to help you to wreck or paralyse the EU. Don’t underestimate our determination not to return to the politics of the 20th century. You were not occupied. Most of us on the Continent were. We’ll do almost anything to prevent it happening again. Europe’s leaders will step up integration to make the euro work. We believe the euro will survive, because it is in members’ interests for it to survive.



Since I first came to your shores more than 30 years ago, Britain has become much more European. You have the Channel Tunnel and are used to duvets. Even your cooking has improved. Yet public opinion and your politics is more Eurosceptic than ever.



Your interests are in Europe. It’s time your sentiments followed. Britain is famous for practical good sense and policies based on reality, not myth. We hope you return to this tradition soon.



Radek Sikorski is the Foreign Minister of Poland