John Howarth

I just thought I'd reproduce below, with a little light fisking of my own in my usual red, something from the Barely Literate Geordie Loser's website (how quaint of him to have one! Especially with no YouTube or, you know, anything!). He wants to be an MEP in the South-East of England. He's not from there, ran away from a contest whenever he held elected office (Redlands ward for Berkshire County Council and Park ward for Reading Borough Council) was misguided enough to allow himself to be written into history as the architect of the disastrous one-way IDR plan for Reading, was part of the corrupt deal on the Reading mosque, and refused to face his Park ward constituents on that issue, was instrumental in the election of a Conservative MP in Reading East in 2005 - and presents himself as a campaigner for Labour? Labour? 

Labour Party

One of many campaign launches, this one with Labour on a roll in 1996.

They're in Reading East. But Martin Salter is the candidate for Reading West. Read a map, John.

Summary

• 1974 February: joined aged 15
• 1977 Essex University Labour Club
• 1979 Intern/Campaign Aid, Harry Cowans MP
• 1979 Worked in first European Elections
• 1980 Colchester GC (Party Branch Delegate)
• 1981 Labour Students National Secretary
• 1982 Labour Full Time Organiser (Basingstoke)
• 1983 General/Local Election Agent
• 1984 Secretary, Hampshire County Labour Party
• 1985 European Election Agent
• 1985-89 South East Regional Organiser
• 1990-95 Chair, Reading (East/West) Labour Part
• 1993-95 Vice Chair, Berkshire County LP
• 1995-2003 Press Officer, Reading Labour Party
• 1990-2012 TGWU/Unite EC Member, Reading

1974 February: joined aged 15

My Dad was on strike – he didn’t want to be but he was loyal to the NUM. Ted Heath called an election and it seemed like a good idea to get rid of him, so when I was asked to help I did. Labour won, sort of. Ironically  Who are we, Alanis Morissette? Nothing ironic going on here the first candidate I worked for was John Horam – then Labour MP for Gateshead West who subsequently defected to the SDP and finally to the Tories. In October I wangled time off school to work in the second election telling them it would help my Social Studies project. They agreed. The buses were on strike. I had to walk six miles to hear Harold Wilson speak at the People’s Theatre in Jesmond, then six miles home again! The PA was dreadful – much of what Harold said was inaudible, but he was a great platform entertainer.

1977 Essex University Labour Club

When I went to University I though You mean "I thought", I fancy. In the European Parliament you will find the need to pay attention to the accuracy of text matters. I was quite left wing. By Essex standards I clearly wasn’t. For one thing I was already a member of the Labour Party and rather unfashionably I believed that winning elections mattered rather a lot. It was all quite mad, but I met some great people many and I learned a lot.

1979 Intern/Campaign Aid, Harry Cowans MP

My first by-election had been in Newcastle Central in  1976. Harry Cowans, a Gateshead councillor and agent in Gateshead West, held the seat comfortably on the night Labour lost its overall majority. The Liberals did well. They produced scrappy leaflets talking about pavements and grass verges. We talked BIG politics. An early lesson I’ve never forgotten.

1979 Worked in first European Elections

I got a leaflet through my door that explained the Parliament which till then had been appointed nationally. What a great idea for a continent with a history of war to elect a multi-national assembly! I think I might have been the only person You weren't. Plenty of people wanted a result from that election for Labour, and worked for it. John Howarth, Dissing his colleagues for decades. who really wanted to work in that election only months after we had lost the General Election. Labour was hammered, but we elected Joyce Quin in Tyne and Wear who was a credit to the job and became MP for Gateshead West in 1987.

1980 Colchester GC (Party Branch Delegate)

Labour was fractious and bitterly divided. I was in the branch where Bob Russell, the candidate at the ’79 election, was a Labour councillor (Central). It was an interesting experience. Looking back it told me everything I needed to know about why we would be in opposition for the next 17 years. Bob Russell has been Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester since 1997.

1981 Labour Students National Secretary

When I became involved Labour played a secondary role in student politics. Most student leaders were elected on ‘broad left’ tickets. The time had come for this to change. In 1981 we elected the first NUS president on a Labour Students platform, Neil Stewart. I ran the communications for the campaign and I changed the ‘brand’ from NOLS (what exactly is a ‘nol’) to Labour Students. That one got me started and I’ve been doing communications and brand ever since.

1982 Labour Full Time Organiser (Basingstoke)
1983 General/Local Election Agent
1984 Secretary, Hampshire County Labour Party
1985 European Election Agent

I took a job working as a Labour constituency organiser in a part of the world with which I was unfamiliar but quickly learned was typical of the social and economic trends that helped keep the Conservatives in power through the 1980s. We did reasonably well in local elections, established some good community campaigning roots that hold to this day. Expanding towns like Basingstoke are good barometers of British politics – in 2001 Labour nearly won the seat.  But didn't, because the Labour candidate, the overweight and lazy Jon Hartley, did very little work, managed to get fined for not taxing his car at the same time, and because Martin Salter put his name to a defamatory leaflet, written by John Howarth, which brought out loyal Tories. Who voted. Great success. Not. Maria Miller MP. John Howarth's part in her victory.

1985-89 South East Regional Organiser

Actually, back then the South East region was the Southern Region. I had visited every constituency long before I put myself forward for this campaign. The role of organiser has changed radically – it needed to – and I was perhaps able to influence that change a little, though it didn’t make me popular at the time.  Many of the battles in the South East were similar to those the Party faces today. We were rebuilding after a serious defeat. We had to ensure that the Party had life and relevance, not just in its UK Parliamentary targets, but throughout the Region. It was all very well asking members in rural villages to decamp to the nearest marginal, but I’ve always remembered a member in Hampshire saying to me, “Of course we’ll drive to Southampton at the election, but I need my politics to matter to me here, where I live my life”. He was right – engaging in local communities is what makes Labour relevant.   

1990-95 Chair, Reading (East/West) Labour Party
1993-95 Vice Chair, Berkshire County LP

While I was an South East Region official (in 1995) that would be 1985 I imagine. Who proofreads this stuff?

I  haired the  first meeting of Reading Labour Party combining the Reading East and Reading West constituencies. It was a great honour four years later in 2001? I think not to be elected Chair. Going to vote for this man who can't tell the truth? *8During my time as Chair we were one of the first parties in the UK to formalise a campaign focused group, which we had been operating informally, into our rulebook. The Campaign Unit was the focus of Reading’s election success, providing the right forum to develop organisation, disseminate tactics and focus resources. Later it became the adopted model of the Party nationally. I was also able to set up policy structures that gave the Labour Group and the Party practical ways of working together. Local success was built both on or strong organisation and getting the local politics right. One without the other will never last.  

1995-2003 Press Officer, Reading Labour Party
2003-2007 and 2010-2012, Publicity Co-ordinator, Reading Labour Party

In Reading the Chair and Press Officer ran the Party’s media output. So in one role or another I was involved in the strategic messages for more than two decades. Working closely with Martin Salter was a privilege and a challenge. Martin’s work rate is legendary and we are the sort of personalities that drive each other on. Nobody ever really knew who exactly had written what; we were a team. The template for campaign from imcumbancy and from power in local Government developed in Reading we were able to export to many parties and MPs elsewhere. 

So the victory of Labour in Reading East and the re-election of the Labour MP in 2001 with an increased majority had nothing to do with you then John? If it had you would surely have mentioned it. Hmmm?
1990-2012 TGWU/Unite EC Member, Reading

I have always been a member of the T&GWU. It was my affiliated union when I went to work full time. My parents and grandparents had been loyal members of their unions in the mining industry and I was brought up to understand the importance of working people being organised for all sort of reasons. Find out more about my work with the Trades Unions here.

- See more at: http://www.johnhowarth.com/index.php/johns-record/labour-party/#sthash.yLXXr59A.dpuf

Best Blessings of Existence 43

Emma B is on a roll ...

Lynne had distrusted Paul from the outset (how right she was) and the feeling; although voiced by neither – was mutual.

With the supposed mellowing of age and the fact that life had propelled them all in different directions, it had ceased to matter, because opportunities for meeting had naturally decreased.

In Gridchester days, a pattern emerged whereby she would invite Lynne to stay when Paul was visiting the Oxbridge colleges.

On the rare occasions that she slipped the domestic leash for a day’s shopping in London, they sometimes did lunch.

As years passed, these were increasingly strained affairs. She wanted to tell her oldest friend the truth about her marriage, but words failed her.

How could you talk about that?

When Greg Salt popped up as part of the equation, the possibilities of disclosure moved from remote to impossible.

Lynne’s husband was not sympathique.

He was, however, rich and successful, and she suspected that he had never experienced a moment of uncertainty from Nanny to Prep to Big School.

Paul and Donald’s upbringing (if that was the right word for the dilettante, faintly bohemian parenting of Lilias and Eric) had not lacked money.

Their mother and father were journalists on national newspapers, and Lilias in particular had connections with B-list actors, artists and musicians (Peter, Paul and Mary but not Dusty; Denholm Elliot but not Olivier).

As Eric was prone to say (especially on the rare and uniquely embarrassing occasions when he met her own parents) a Waverley education was the best gift he had given to his sons, and he was possibly right, as evinced by Paul’s Third at Cambridge.

But the middle-class aspiration of her husband’s family paled into insignificance beside the landed certainties of Greg Salt’s clan.

The third son of Appeal Court Judge Sir Boniface ( Boner) Salt; he had been raised in Tulberry; an hour’s drive from central London but another country to all intents and purposes, where visitors were more likely to encounter deer and horses than people.

Wickery Court, the family seat, would have been instantly recognised by readers familiar with the novels of Waugh and Mitford. Greg had followed his father and brothers into Pop at Eton; his sisters Delphine and Maris had boarded at St Mary’s Ascot.

All rode to hounds.

Sir Boniface and Lady Eleanor embodied the England of The Countrywoman magazine and, of course, each to their own.

But how on earth Lynne had become enmeshed in this world to the extent of marrying into it was beyond her understanding.

Over the years it formed another wedge between them.

Lynne married Greg in 1989, shortly after she had moved with her own family to Littelbury following Paul’s appointment as Deputy Master at the school of the same name.

The wedding itself was a shock (she had not seen it coming, and Greg had featured in only one letter from Lynne, in connection with a planning issue) but everything about the man placed him in polar opposition to her friend.

Lynne’s father was a GP in a family-run medical practice where her mother provided administrative back up. Lynne and her twin sister Olive had attended the local grammar school on scholarships and while Lynne had taken the academic path, Olive had married her first boyfriend, Kelvin. The couple now ran a successful optician’s business and were themselves the parents of twin boys.

It was obvious why Greg Salt; a rather portly Tufton-Bufton-style lawyer, would be attracted to acerbic, career high-flier, Lynne Lessways, who had already carved out a name for herself within the Department as one to watch.

She was going places fast, and already the routines of the Civil Service; dusted and tended generation after generation like plastic geraniums, seemed too outmoded for a woman of her ambition.

But why Lynne; passionately egalitarian in every respect; a voracious reader, free-thinker and a fervent advocate of what used to be called women’s lib,should wish to tie herself in perpetuity to a person who regarded Earl Grey’s Reform Act as midwife to the permissive society, was the eighth wonder of the world.

How could the woman who had dated some of the most interesting and intellectual men in London have sunk to this?

She suspected that the answer was the usual root of all evil – money.

Lynne earned a good salary at the Department; the type of income that no main grade pay scale teacher would take home. She had progressed from a series of rented studio apartments in the less fashionable parts of London to a very decent one bedroom flat in Pimlico, courtesy of a ruinous mortgage.

It was pleasant – and Lynne’s eye for detail and an interesting artefact had meant that she had acquired some extremely nice pieces from foreign travel, including severa modern mosaics from Sicily and a splendidly ornate rug; a memento from her Moroccan holiday with Sandra.

After her marriage to Greg, Lynne kept the flat (now dubbed a pied-a-terre) possibly as an insurance policy should the relationship fail.

But whatever her intentions had been, it was rarely if ever used, because when

Mr and Mrs Salt (junior) were not residing at their spacious Surrey home, or holidaying at the Seville apartment, they spent time with Greg’s family at Wickery Court.

Shortly after the wedding (listed in the Society column of The Sentinel, after the weekly Court Schedule), Lynne left the Department, retaining tenuous links as an Advisor and set up her own Consultancy, Saltways.

Exactly what Saltways did was never clear, but within the space of a year, its plush offices in Park Lane were augmented by sister concerns in Brussels and Madrid.

Lynne became a regular on the more serious quasi-scientific radio and television programmes; chaired the judging panel for the annual Green Businesses Award, and started to write.

The Inuit: Man and Myth, shortlisted for the Attenborough in 2009, was a sparkling tour de force; there was talk of a series of documentaries based on its findings, and even a short film, courtesy of the acclaimed director; Anton Lubyeck.

And of course the dogs.

She had absolutely no idea where Pork, Scratching and the long trail of their ancestors, had come from.

At Dorlich, Lynne had evinced a total lack of interest in any animal apart from the human male.

Within a month of becoming Mrs Salt, however, the first puppies arrived and assumed pole position at the centre of hearth and home with their baskets, pedigrees and expensive medical treatments.

Crufts and breeders took on an inordinate importance although Lynne showed no signs of breeding herself and thus doing her bit for the Salt dynasty.

It was a life of money and the freedom and influence that money can bring, and she had to admit that her friend had thrived.

But in the death-watch hours of the night, did the woman who had esteemed Ben Bex-Oliver wonder exactly what she was doing lying next to Greg Salt; a man who (despite his wealth and connections) probably wore sock suspenders?

If so, she did not say ...9

Now, she held the telephone, barely recognising the guttural stream assaulting her ears. It was incomprehensible but perfectly lucid

It was all about pain.

She left the house and set off for the station; her ultimate destination a Pimlico flat that she had not visited for 21 years.

She wondered if it had changed.

Best Blessings of Existence 42

In which there are Revelations.

The Sweets kept tropical fish in an enormous glass tank in their living room.

She did not particularly like fish and suspected that Hazel could also take or leave the guppies, puffers and loaches gliding inanely back and forth. They were a quirk of Martin’s, along with his passion for corned beef and tinned potato salad; intractable hostility to holidaying abroad; and refusal to move house. Hazel fancied a change (something a bit larger and more in the country…) but Martin clung to their Pendle Street semi like a turtle to its shell and only death or divorce would shift him.

The Sweets had offered her a lift to an emergency executive meeting at the St John’s Ambulance hut and as Martin revved the engine of the green Renault she decided that it was perhaps wise not to pry into the secrets of other people’s marriages.

Gone were the pre-Paul days when she and Lynne would burn the midnight oil, draining the last of Lynne’s home-made wine and subjecting the relationships of their friends and enemies to forensic scrutiny. Marriage to Paul had made her extremely accommodating towards the choices of others.Hazel and Martin had virtually nothing in common apart from two teenage children, the Party and hatred of the Butchers – but what of it?After sexual attraction had waned, she suspected that most couples chose to lump it. And divorce would be so disruptive.

I can’t think why you agreed to it….you’ve just played into Clare’s hands!

Hazel’s voice had an irritated tone and remonstration was pointless. The meeting had been called to discuss the astronomical costs incurred by the team overseeing the Laceybrook by-election – in particular the hiring of a photographer at an extortionate sum for a day’s work ‘on location’; two glossy leaflets and unaccountable bills submitted for restaurant meals and expensive bottles of wine.

During the course of an election, all monies were at the disposal of the Agent – and Dickon had been disposing with a vengeance.

Martin reversed into the hut car park and said nothing, but his back in its grey elephant cord jacket heaved resentfully.They entered the room in silence.

The hut had been the venue for her first Party meeting and as she looked at the comrades, poring over her leaflets and handing round receipts, she wished that it had been her last. Everyone was there, from the Butchers to Gail Pitt and even the elusive Darren Peabody was clutching his bic pen with an air of authority.

Everyone -- except Dickon Cleave.

They were out in force for a witch hunt.

Two hours later, the Sweets dropped her off at home and for once she was delighted that Paul was entertaining John and Kathryn Nuttall to his latest favourite tipple – Highland Park single malt whisky – a Christmas present from Eric who had brought back a case after a recent trip to the Orkneys.

For once, the sight of her husband, pipe in one hand, whisky tumbler in the other, holding forth to the Nuttalls from the vantage point of the wheel-backed chair failed to provoke more than a twinge of the customary irritation. It was a relief to be home and if the sight of Kathryn Nuttall; pale and earnest in a cream shift dress and Birkenstock sandals was provoking, then at least she was not Clare Butcher. Or Ron Butcher. Or any of the loathsome people that, after this election, she was determined never to set eyes upon again.

Brian Pelleroe, twitching uneasily in yet another red fisherman’s jumper (how many did her have?) had chaired the meeting, but the real inquisitor was Clare Butcher; imperious and foreboding in a shapeless black boiler suit.

In the absence of the Election Agent, it was only fair that the candidate be asked to justify the enormous amount of money that had been lavished upon a completely unwinnable by-election in a Tory stronghold.

She should make it plain from the outset (glaring at the comrades; daring them to dissent) that the Party had absolutely no intention of reimbursing either the candidate or the Agent for a quite astonishing display of utterly capitalist gluttony.

Of course neither were expected to campaign on an empty stomach – but tea and sandwiches should have sufficed instead of champagne and turbot.

Dickon could have taken the photographs himself instead of hiring the most expensive photographer in Gridchester whose promotional material included a Harpers and Queen shoot with Penelope Tree.

And on the topic of leaflets...

Each member of the committee had been supplied with copies of her literature – the introductory Lady Loves Laceybrook -- and the second.

The Lady Loves Laceybrook came in for criticism; it was thin on policy (Ron Butcher) and expensive – should have taken a tip from Derek Kingsmill (Fred Hoy).

The second leaflet was greeted with unanimous opprobrium.

Twenty-three years later she could see why. Even then it had been hard to defend the four-page A4 glossy colour collation of photographs under the umbrella headline

Laceybrook - A Bird’s Eye View!

The good burghers of Laceybrook were invited to cast their own eyes on the candidate leaning dreamily over the bridge of the brook (in a wet-look T-shirt)

caressing the arch of a country church (causing her skirt to ride up her thighs) and sitting on a pony (in a skirt).

Amongst other unspeakable poses….

The photographs were captioned with her name, an injunction to vote and contact details of her Agent.The Party was mentioned in small print at the bottom of a page.

I think she offered hesitantly

that Dickon was aiming for a more modern take on the traditional leaflet – something to make them sit up and take notice….

Oh they’ll do that all right, retorted Clare. And so will the rest of the world if the Tories have got any sense and pass this muck straight to The Crier.

There had been more – in fact, much more in the same vein and when even Gail Pitt had queried the expense combined with the absence of a canvassing schedule

(vetoed by Dickon as an invasion of privacy), she had become desperate.

It was all she could do to stop herself crying and when she had excused herself from Paul and the Nuttalls, pleading a headache, that was exactly what she did.

The next few days were infused with a sense of impending doom – exacerbated by the fact that Dickon – so attentive over the turbot – had suddenly decamped to London, pleading an alteration to his lecture schedule at the Courtauld.

She had telephoned his home, expecting sympathy after her ordeal in the hut only to be informed of a change in his plans by Jessamy. Had she imagined it, or was the intrepid Greenham feminist slightly chilly – even abrupt?

Of course, she swings both ways, commented Hazel when they convened with Sylvia and Gail for a girls’ night out the day before the election.

But then she’s had a lot to put up with over the years and maybe women are less threatening?

They were sitting at a corner table in The Balti Bowl, Gridchester’s cheap and cheerful curry house, sharing the contents of the popadom pickle tray. The meal was Hazel’s idea; partly , she suspected, to break the ice and repair the friendship after the terrible emergency meeting - and also as an excuse to skip corned beef hash at home with Martin and the fish.

It was a step up from corned beef hash, but certainly not haute cuisine, nor fine dining with its mandatory posh crockery and exorbitant prices.

It was all right.

It was a night out with food and she ought to enjoy it, but neither the rubbery king prawns nor the conversation were to her taste.

She was not sure that she wanted to know what Jessamy had been forced to put up with over the years, or that Dickon had conducted a rake’s progress the length and breadth of the nation with such Hogarthian gusto that no female over the age of consent was safe from his clutches. He was apparently Byronic in more ways than one...

I mean (said Hazel between mouthfuls of sag aloo and lamb korma)

He even had a go at ME (looking at Gail and Sylvia for confirmation) at Maureen Booth’s fish n’ chip supper!

With the best will in the world , the idea of Dickon engaging in rampant coitus with the 13-stone Hazel, complete with curly perm and a dress sense best described as mumsy was a step too far. But if her friend could only stomach sex with Martin by summoning up an imagined grope with Dickon over fish and chips at a Party fundraiser – then who was she to object?

I thought you liked him she said as she paid her part of the bill and rummaged in her purse for a tip.

Well, he’s wonderful of course retorted Hazel smugly, but his sort should come with the warning ‘Look but don’t touch!’

The day of the Laceybrook by-election remained stubbornly in her memory, much as she had tried to erase it over the years.

She had woken early; pressed and rejected two suits and a sleeveless red body top and finally settled upon a white linen dress sprigged with rosebuds. Red shoes and matching bag completed the outfit and as she applied lipstick and pinned on her rosette, she felt, albeit briefly, like a candidate.

Paul finished his coffee, patted the children and Splosh and stated that he had asked Christine to babysit. For one glorious moment, she thought that this meant that her husband would be by her side at the count and said so.

Paul laughed:

Oh really darling! You’ll have to imagine I’m Trotsky; airbrushed out of the picture! You can’t expect me to hang around some godforsaken church hall or wherever they have these things, on handbag duty?! Isn’t Mummy silly, Ness Ness?

Vanessa chortled, Richard beamed and Paul kissed her for luck before grabbing his briefcase and making his exit. He was hosting a departmental dinner; she was not to wait up…

Dickon had offered to give her a lift – but for some reason, she declined and made her way to Laceybrook on public transport; a train journey followed by two bus trips. Apart from a handful of assorted pensioners and mums-with- toddlers, she travelled in splendid isolation and it was surely only a matter of time before the bus routes were scrapped on economic grounds.

However, when the mind is free, the body’s delicate and as the bus traversed the country lanes, she contemplated the day ahead with mounting horror. What did you do, as a candidate on an election day? Whatever it was, she would be doing it solo because as far as she could ascertain, the comrades would be voting with their feet and staying at home.

The leaflet row had supplied the perfect excuse.

She spent the day drinking coffee in high street cafes; rosette stuffed firmly in her handbag, hoping nobody would guess who she was; debating how long she could reasonably stay in one location without being suspected of loitering with intent.

By 5 pm, she had exhausted every respectable outlet and when the roar of an engine announced the presence of the MG roadster, she felt a remarkable kinship with Captain Oates.

Comparisons with the failed Antarctic expedition were brought sharply into focus at the count.

The venue, a village hall that had seen better days, was unfortunately situated next to the church where she had posed so provocatively, and the barely suppressed mirth from the eminently respectable group surrounding the Tory candidate suggested that they too had made the connection.

Sir Emrys Bowcher’s successor, Stanley Dexter- Leppard; portly, balding and aged seventy plus, suited the place, its tea-rooms and its stifling rurality to perfection.

Judging by the 1,960 people who had voted for him, Laceybrook agreed.

She had won the allegiance of just twenty-three people.

And I bet they were all perverts! (She thought)

She was sitting with Dickon in a pub on the outskirts of Gridchester. She had cried; angry tears of humiliation and now she was drinking. Too much. She did not want to go home. She did not want to face Paul, the children, the Party or even the dog.

She wanted to die.

Dickon, by contrast displayed a remarkable equanimity in face of adversity. And of course, he looked remarkable in his stone coloured Calvin Klein jeans, crisp white shirt with a green thread and tailored black jacket. Indeed, the only extenuating factor about the whole abortive business was being seen in public in the company of such an attractive man.

The attractive man who now seized her hand, telling her that the only reason he had volunteered to be Agent for such a lost cause was the chance to spend time with her.

So it had been worth it - all twenty- three votes of it - and why didn’t they go on spending time together?

He parked in a lay-by on the way home.

For the next four days, she performed domestic and work duties in a mist; jumping to attention at the sound of the telephone and taking Splosh on lengthy walks. In the bedroom, she repelled sexual advances with a series of excuses and did not care whether they were plausible or not.

Four days became seven and then fourteen. After three weeks, sensations of misery had replaced the tremors of excitement she had nurtured during the dog-walks as certain events came insistently to mind.

She snapped at Paul and the children and left without saying goodbye before taking the familiar walk, past the spice factory, to The Duke for the Party meeting.

The back room was suffused with air of more than usual gloom – and there was something else – akin to the type of shared horror that gripped a nation when the enormity of Peter Sutcliffe’s crimes was made public.

How could she justify raiding the Deposit Account – lovingly accrued after many a meat auction, fish n’ chip supper, car boot sale, church hall rummage, cake stall and Tupperware Party for a paltry 23 votes? She looked for Dickon, who was absent, and then, raising her eyes from her shoes said:

I’m sorry…

Well, I think we all are said Brian Pelleroe, who had unaccountably abandoned his fisherman’s jersey for a funereal lounge suit.

But the question is what do we DO about it? You missed the earlier discussion. Vince (with a nod to the trade union delegates) and the majority of comrades feel that calling in the police would damage the Party – but I have to say (his voice rising angrily) as far as I’m concerned it goes against the grain..

She glanced at Hazel who looked away - and gripped her chair as the room and everyone in it spun before her eyes.

The police? For 23 votes? She had to get out – anywhere – away from there.

Ned Pitt blocked her exit and shouted angrily:

You see? THIS is the damage! THIS is what happens if we brush it under the carpet and do a whitewash - sorry Vince but it’s got to be said! Bright, new members will jump off board like rats leaving a sinking ship! And if you haven’t got the guts to ring the police about Ron Butcher then I will!

Sylvia brought the drinks to their table at the Malmsey Head and she wished that the landlord would do something about the jukebox.

I’m on Fire by Bruce Springsteen was on its third outing in an hour and she didn’t think she could take much more of With or Without You from The Joshua Tree album either. In fact, the insistent music was extremely irritating and perhaps it was time for a change of venue.

You can never tell what goes on behind other people’s closed doors opined Gail, whose long-suffering nature induced her to see the best in everyone.

Poor Clare – that Deposit Account was her LIFE – I’m sure she’s more upset about that than the loss of Ron – bastard that he is.

Ron Butcher, husband of Clare; custodian of Party principle; self-righteous bully and hairy ginger prig had left his wife and his job at the Peacock Heating Company and had run off to live with a customer in Lowerbridge.

The week beforehand, he had made a fulsome speech at a friend’s wedding, praising the joys of married life with particular reference to Clare.

And he had stolen the contents of the Deposit Account to finance his new love nest.

The Laceybrook by election and her ignominious role in it had been totally eclipsed by the Butcher affair and the impending court action. Ron had been tracked down swiftly and could expect a brief custodial sentence; Clare had not been seen in public and was not answering the telephone and the local paper had splashed the story.

Bastard is too good for him pronounced Hazel, tucking into smoky bacon crisps with a relish that forecast the failure of her recent enrolment at Weight Watchers.

But – men are all the same – the only difference between Ron Butcher and, say, Dickon Cleave is that Dickon’s got more opportunity for obvious reasons.

The mention of Dickon Cleave found her rummaging in her bag and hoping that nobody had noticed that she was breathing more quickly.

And of course Jessamy’s been left holding the baby again – or not, in this case!

I mean we all knew he put it about – but getting a student pregnant!! He might lose his job!

He’s certainly losing his touch, said Sylvia sagely.

Since I’ve known him he’s gone through virtually all the available women in the Party and some of the not so available – but I thought he knew how to use a condom! They don’t always. That’s why I went back to the pill after Ida.

But getting back to Dickon – I doubt we’ll see him again. How did you get on with him (taking one of Hazels’ crisps) at that by-election? We all wondered if he’d have a go - especially as you’re new. Bit of a challenge I expect!

She decided that it would be wise to have an early night in view of a heavy teaching schedule tomorrow at Gridchester and told Hazel that she would take the bus home.

And as for Dickon Cleave – nothing could be farther from the truth.

I don’t think I’m his type, she said.

Best Blessings of Existence 41

In which Emma B discovers what spoils everything.

Her predicted outcomes for Donald and Gillian’s whistle-stop were pretty accurate.

Someone had vomited, but not a child. Gillian had compensated for mediocre prawn balls, sesame toasts and a particularly greasy dish of beef and water chestnuts by drinking too much.

Cheap merlot rather than food poisoning was the cause of her confinement in the downstairs toilet and subsequent ill humour.

Vanessa had wet her bed; David had snapped the neck off Richard’s favourite brontosaurus and Paul, in inimitable style had escaped the resultant wailing and gnashing of teeth by whisking Donald off to the Duke.

She could see that they must have been ensconced for some time with Kev, Suez Mick and Fatty, whose sludge-coloured low slung trousers left little to the imagination. As usual the latter was unshaven and presented as a caricature of the horny-handed sons of toil that the Party in the adjoining tap-room was supposed to represent.

Horny-handed or not, Fatty was a horrible, drunken oaf who sponged off his parents, Edna and Stan; spent his wages on booze and had been known to treat his women to a smack around the chops when popped up.

He did not merit representation.

Donald, in Harris Tweed jacket and brogues polished to perfection with an assiduous attention to detail honed in the corps of his alma mater, seemed ill at ease. He was betraying familiar signs of discomfort such as clearing his throat and picking at his cuticles. But Eric’s financial outlay on a Waverley education had not gone amiss.

Paul’s brother waved his wallet and she suspected that Donald had borne the financial burden of the evening’s jollities.

Her husband had teamed his army greatcoat with the flat cap and Hunter’s wellingtons that were his sartorial pick when fraternising with Binley regulars. It was a type of fancy dress at a distinct remove from the tailored suits and understated cufflinks that typified his garb when visiting Oxbridge colleges.

He gave Dickon Cleave the quizzical smile that he reserved for the lower orders, and glanced at Jessamy’s ample bosom, inclining his head.

Well – if you’re offering? Mine’s a double grouse…

Donald and Gillian left with the lark the next day.

As she sat in her staff cubby hole at GC, sipping instant coffee and wading through execrable essays on The Crucible, she mused about the last 24 hours. An evening of undiluted Gillian had been exchanged – for what? A murderous headache (unlike Paul, she could not sleep whilst her toddler screamed) and laundering wet sheets at 4am. Paul had been perky; walking Splosh, and doing men’s things with the Spong coffee grinder before bounding off to work with a parting sally:

Back late – Lower Sixth play – and you’d better postpone the revolution because Christine’s visiting her mother!

The revolution was the least of her problems.

She did not enjoy teaching at GC. The mid-sixties brick and glass block was an unappealing work space and the less-motivated teenagers had forsaken - school regime for ‘college’ with its informal dress code and licence to smoke cigarettes ( and possibly cannabis) outside the entrance lobby.

The majority of staff members were on ‘rolling’ contracts and insecurity of tenure bred an inevitable lack of commitment to the institution and its students.

She was part of the Humanities team, led (if that was the word) by Selma Blaine, whose curly perm and spray-on emerald jeans made her a cross between Jane Fonda in Work Out mode and Breakfast Television’s very own Green Goddess, Diana Moran.

Or that was the idea.

In reality, the lumps and bumps of a post-menopausal figure should have necessitated a ruthless cull of all things lycra from the wardrobe but Selma, oblivious to the sniggers of her students, collected her salary, perfected her timetabling and ensured that student numbers remained stable .

If she knew that her nickname was ‘Mutton’, she betrayed no hint.

Lecturers were required to turn up; maintain a modicum of control and be seen to set and mark work. Usually she fulfilled the criteria – but today, the hamster-on-wheel routine was unbearable.She could have done the job performing cartwheels with a carnation stuck up her nose. Had nights of relentless swotting at Dorlich been a curtain raiser for this?

As she caught the bus for the homeward journey, she reflected that it was not as if domestic life offered any compensation.She had not wanted to move, and while Paul went from strength to strength at Fairway, she remained dissatisfied, bored and friendless.

Hazel and the girls were fun – but what did she really share with them?

When they had exhausted television soaps, the latest Ruth Rendell, kids, clothes, marital sex and the perfidy of the Butchers all that remained was a cultural desert the size of the Sahara

She was losing the language to communicate with Lynne, who was mixing in increasingly sophisticated London circles and had attended the champagne preview of Anthony and Cleopatra at the National.

While she had attended a political equivalent of Dad’s Army in the Duke…

She got off the bus and marched into the off-licence near thome, paying more than usual for two bottles of decent Frascati.

Things had got to change, and if it was going to take alcohol and French knickers to convince Paul that it was time for her career opportunities to take priority then so be it.

With any luck, she had a couple of hours’ pampering in the bathroom before he returned from the play rehearsal. She would team Next knickers with a front-fasten Wonderbra and don the grey jersey sheath and black patent stilettos with the bar straps. Vanessa had swimming at school tomorrow and could be persuaded into bed after tea and Richard could overdose on Thomas the Tank Engine and Rainbow.

After Paul had been bewitched by the vision of feminine sexiness adorning his hearth and home she might tactfully propose a move to Oxford or Cambridge. There would be an abundance of opportunities for him – and she might study for a PhD!

The children would thrive; lose their grotesque Gridchester accents and in the spirit of brave new worlds, she would call Brian Pelleroe and resign as candidate for the ridiculous Laceybrook by-election.

The sight of the mustard family Peugeot in the car port at the back of her house necessitated a rethink.

Paul must have cancelled his rehearsal, and the idea of captivating him unawares in guise of a 20^th century Primavera was a non-starter. She walked up the path wondering what on earth had possessed her to buy the horrible brown cord button through skirt she was wearing and to complete the ensemble with a lumberjack- style checked shirt and American Tan tights.

When she had met Paul on that fateful night ten years ago in Bunters, she had been virtually bursting out of her maxi dress, a seductive vision of curves, lipstick and tumbling blonde hair. The words ripe and peach came to mind, and in one of his amorous flights of fancy, Paul had compared her charms to those of Tess, milking her herd at Talbothay’s Dairy.

As she entered her scullery kitchen Tessy dearest was back in her novel and the reflection greeting her from the kitchen mirror was a dead ringer for Patricia Hayes in Edna the Inebriate Woman.

She had let herself go, and if Paul were to succumb to a Gridchester version of Frances Hunt – then who could blame him?

In the dining room, Vanessa and Richard were busying themselves with the Fisher Price garage and she could see that tears from one or both were a probability. The three years separating them in age meant that Richard was incapable of being a satisfying playmate to a serious five year old who had started school and was learning to read.

This did not stop him following her like a dog; attempting to join in her games and invariably spoiling them. She caught his hand instinctively as he was about to hurl a car at his sister and braced herself for the inevitable wails. She had wanted two children. When would they start to like each other?

Well, I think that’s her now….

Paul’s voice came from the lounge and sounded tense. He had company and the thought that she might be expected to entertain the Nuttalls was unbearable.

She turned the lounge door handle, and was leapt upon by Splosh with such vigour that she dropped the wine, tripped and landed unceremoniously in the lap of Dickon Cleave.

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts he said.

The next hour; embarrassing for her and perceptibly irritating for Paul, did little to ruffle the composure of their unexpected guest. Dickon lounged on the sofa, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it was grubby and covered in dog hairs. He had the type of angular physique that would have looked good in a sack, but the jeans, granddad shirt with a delicate blue stripe and soft brown leather boots conveyed a casual elegance that was neither cheap nor casual. It took time and money to look that good, she thought, horribly conscious of her matronly court shoes and “in between” length hairstyle.

Similarly, Paul in his shapeless grey school suit and black shoes with side buckle looked hopelessly dated. Dickon had the effect of making them staid, middle-aged and boring and she wanted him to finish his drink and go.

He showed no signs of doing so, because he had come to visit his candidate.

An hour later, her plans for a romantic evening had departed as her Election Agent sped away in his MG roadster and her husband decamped to the Duke. The children were in bed and nothing had changed – but everything was different. Paul returned after closing time and went straight to bed. He was unusually taciturn and she did not feel talkative. They slept fitfully, back to back.

When she remembered that time from the distance brought by 26 years, the sequence of events had perforce blurred, but the atmosphere was light, bright and sparkling. GC, her home and everything in it seemed suddenly Lilliputian and as she looked at her husband and children, the words from Status Quo pounded insistently:

When I look up to the skies

I see your eyes a funny kind of yellow

I rush home to bed I soak my head

I see your face underneath my pillow

I wake next morning, tired, still yawning

See your face come peeping through my window

Pictures of matchstick men and you

Mirages of matchstick men and you

All I ever see is them and you

She was seeing a lot of Dickon Cleave.

Her Agent was vibrant, witty, resourceful, charming, and possessed of unequalled enthusiasm both for the election and the candidate. As they sat, night after night, huddled in the darkest corner of the Duke’s tap room, pouring over voting trends and compiling canvassing schedules, she had never felt happier.

Years later, she realised that she had not been happy, but excited, and the rush of blood to the head had nothing to do with the prospect of fighting her first election as candidate (in an utterly unwinnable seat) and everything to do with the sensations occasioned by close proximity to an incredibly attractive man.

When she lost her parliamentary seat and made a bonfire of press cuttings and leaflets; the history of her rollercoaster ride in politics - she was dumbfounded when she unearthed her first ever election leaflet.

There she was; a cornucopia of blonde hair and red lipstick, clad in a diaphanous white shirt and pale blue jeans, arms aloft, sitting on a swing. Her smile was arch and the caption read: The Lady LOVES Laceybrook.

It was verging on soft porn and how could she ever have sanctioned it?

At the time, Dickon’s insistence on hiring he most extortionate photographer in Gridchester for a day’s shoot on location and then raiding the deposit account for the cost of a full colour leaflet seemed only right and proper. The fact that Derek Kingsmill’s humble (and winning) General Election leaflet in neighbouring Lowerbridge would have cost a fraction of the amount was entirely irrelevant.

He always was a cheapskate

And they had spent such a wonderful day; roaring off on Saturday in the nippy MG; lunch at a cunning little restaurant beside the brook of ‘Laceybrook’ with its luxuriant countryside backdrop complemented exquisitely by the Kir Royales that Dickon had insisted they drink before tucking into plates of turbot on a bed of wilted greens.

The photoshoot was a joy; choreographed by Dickon while Greville from Photo Fanatic snapped her in a variety of settings and costumes (she had packed a small suitcase). Jerry Hall and Marie Helvin had a rival!

In the end, it had been a toss-up between the swing and jeans picture and another one in which she had posed on the grass with her back to a tree, wearing a black velvet skirt and knee length boots. That one was Dickon’s choice – vetoed by her on account of showing too much leg.

Greville left early and they drove back in leisurely style, stopping at another country pub to discuss the campaign. She arrived home at 9 pm, exuding euphoria.

Paul was sitting in the wheel-back chair, smoking his pipe and listening to Ravel’s Bolero.

It jarred unpleasantly with her mood, as did the incessant yapping of Splosh, whose empty bowl indicated that Paul had omitted to feed him.

Paul was crotchety; sniping that she had said that she would be back four hours ago. “I’ve had Jessamy Neape on the phone. They were supposed to be meeting her daughter at Geppetto’s - she waited as long as she could but then had to go on ahead. And the kids have had alphabet animals and burgers AGAIN – there was nothing else in the freezer!”

She looked at her husband’s baggy old jeans and frayed shirt,his habitual weekend loafing clothes, and wondered why he felt it appropriate to channel Saville Row when visiting the Oxbridge colleges and emulate a bin man when spending time with his family.

Well, why didn’t you buy them something else? she returned as they began the low-level bickering that was becoming a staple of their relationship. She was conscious of prolonging it to avoid the imposition of sex, and her strategy worked, as Paul slammed the door and went to bed alone.

She poured herself a glass of wine and smoked a cigarette, trying to recapture the magic of the day, but he had ruined it … by mentioning Jessamy Neape.

Now, try as she may, images of herself and Dickon, eating a deux in Laceybrook were overlaid with images of Dickon and Jessamy in their house, with their family and even in their bed.

It was repulsive.

Paul had spoiled her day. Paul spoiled ----- everything.

As usual.

Abu Qatada

has been deported to Jordan because he agreed to go there. Not because of any ruling by anybody. I find the "debate" in the UK around such issues depressing. The tabloids, OK, what would you expect. But people are becoming more credulous and unintelligent in public forums, it seems to me. Victoria Brittain, some kind of intellectual and writer, has mounted a "defence" of Abu Qatada, on the grounds that his home is filled with books and that his children do well at school. Stupid. In bad faith. Since when was having books in the home a defence? So barely literate people in dysfunctional families do not deserve justice? Oh. I feel increasingly that I am something of a lone voice, in that my view is that people should not be detained without being sent to trial for more than a very short period of time. Charge them, try them, give them a fair trial, or let them go. This is not always  being done in the UK. Hence the human rights issues.

Should it have to be spelled out that human rights are for everyone, nasty people as well as nice? If they are not they are meaningless and in fact do not exist? Should it really? Should it have to be pointed out  that if people say or write something which you personally find offensive you should put up with it on the grounds of freedom of speech? In connection with this, I am against the lifting of parliamentary immunity in respect of Marine Le Pen. This has been done because she allegedly said some horrid things that incite racial hatred. Well, of course she did. She's Front National. That's what they are about. That's what the people who voted for them agree with.

Parliamentary privilege and immunity matter a lot for democracy. They are the only guarantee of true freedom of action for elected representatives in the interests of those who elected them (which does not mean just those who voted for them). They are not to be trifled with in the interests of populism. They are not to be restricted to nice people.

I was there...

something happened a few days ago which I have been turning over in my head ever since, and have reached no conclusions. I was on a Strasbourg tram. A small girl, two to three years old, started a tantrum and was shrieking. I turned round to look. I could not see the child, whose head was below the top of the seat, but I could see the mother. The mother raised her hand, and there were hard, repeated slaps, which did not stop. Nor did the child's shrieking, which got louder. Several of us women met each other's eyes, and heads were shaken. Then the tram stopped between stops, and the driver, female, around forty years old, came out of the cab and went and spoke to the child. She told her there was no need to cry, and she should stop now. (I'm translating freely from memory). The mother said "She won't listen. She won't listen to anybody when she's like this". The driver then spoke at some length to the mother, saying that she had children herself, and she knew that slapping them when they had a tantrum did no good. She wouldn't have anyone being hit on her tram, she said. The child quietened down while this was being said. Then the tram driver went back to her cab, and the mother moved to another seat, leaving the child where she was, and took the child off the tram at the next stop.

My son used to have tantrums at that age, and I know how stressful they are. I never hit him. Not being smug; I just didn't think it would do any good. On occasion I put him outside the back door for a minute or two. Once I locked myself in the bathroom so as not to shake him.

A child was being beaten. I was there and I did and said nothing. It's not just English embarrassment, though that was a factor for me. No-one else on the tram was English. The mother and child were of African appearance. I don't know if that was a factor. The tram driver's uniform and position of responsibility, which the rest of us did not have, perhaps gave her the confidence, and indeed the obligation, to do something. But what if it had happened in the street?

It's complicated. We all think we would intervene. But...

Patrick McGilligan, "Alfred Hitchcock, a LIfe in Darkness and Light"

Although I've read quite a lot about Hitchcock over the years I'd never read an actual biography of him until now. The Donald Spoto has been on my to-read list for some time, but I won't read it now. I know from this book what it says. I was inspired to get this book by seeing the recent film with Anthony Hopkins, about his relationship with his wife Alma and the making of Psycho. 

I'm really glad I did. It's long, but never boring for a moment despite the wealth of detail, down to describing exactly how certain shots were achieved in some films. Hitchcock is seen here as something of a romantic, and with a Victorian sexual upbringing which probably did him no good. I can see that. It is also emphasised that he started his working life as a designer. If you think of his films as designed they make sense in a way they perhaps did not before, and did not always to critics at the time, some of whom dismissed them as pulp horror. I hadn't realised how much of the writing Hitch did in his films - he didn't take writing credits. This book is really good, don't be put off by its length. The title "A Life In Darkness and Light", while absolutely right for what most of his films looked like, gave me earworm of the Bob Dylan song "Isis", you know, "I came to a high place of darkness and light, dividing line ran through the centre of town" and suddenly I saw the scene portrayed in that song (the two men frantically chopping through an ice-bound cavern until one of them dies), as pure Hitch. Hitchcock should have made a film of the song. Can anyone tell me about other films which were based on songs?