THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT
Jasper Gerard on the three right-on women
who will play a leading role in choosing who sits in the House of Lords
ONCE it was kings who nominated peers of the realm. Now it is the House of Lords Appointments Commission. Remarkably little is known about this new body. One reason for this is that its composition was announced on the day of the London may- oral and the local government elections. As a news story it was given only a few paragraphs — and then only in the posh papers. Another reason is that its members are not exactly high-profile. Three of its key members — the so-called indepen- dents who will work under the chairman- ship of Lord Stevenson of Coddenham are Angela Sarkis, 45, Felicity Huston, 36, and Dame Deirdre Hine, 63.
Who? Precisely. But the three sisters have been spoken of, unkindly perhaps, as the Blair Witch Project. Together with their chairman they will be able to outvote the three old-timers inherited from the now defunct Scrutiny Committee; together they will exercise profound but unseen power on behalf of the Prime Minister. With the abolition of so many hereditaries there are more vacancies at the House of Lords than at the average jobcentre. The sisters will help determine who fills the vacancies.
Ms Sarkis is the most dynamic and dis- turbing of the three. She is a radical sociol- ogy graduate whose parents hail from Jamaica. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it is hard to see how even a Millbank spin doctor could plausibly describe her as independent. Judging by her views on everything from Thatcherism to Christianity to James Bulger's murder- ers, she has arrived in Westminster stag- gering under the weight of modish political baggage. In remarks that she must hope are long forgotten — made during a syrupy interview in the Guardian — she called for 'incredibly dramatic steps' to force policy-makers to adopt a radical left- wing agenda on poverty. She toiled as a social worker for an outfit called Divert in `disadvantaged areas' such as Leeds. While at Divert, whose purpose is to help 'poten- tial offenders' (criminals to you, sir), she developed novel opinions on crime as well as on broader political issues. In the days before she had to be seen to be indepen- dent and therefore impartial, she said that `The Thatcher view was: "It's out there if you want it, so go and get it." And we all knew it was a lie.' Mrs T., apparently, `rocked' her Christian faith. She has equal- ly robust views on the responsibility of young people for crimes they commit. Talking about the murder of Jamie Bulger, she did not declare that his killers were evil, but speculated that their behaviour had been determined some two genera- tions before they had been born.
An evangelist whom even friends describe as 'belligerent', she has suggested that any Christian who does not share her views on how to tackle poverty is heartless. `I am not an angry Christian, but it makes me angry to know that there is deprivation in Britain and that some Christians appear not to care,' she has remarked. 'People who are poor and vulnerable have been sanitised by the politicians and the system and have had the lid put on them to make them invisible. I want to take the lid off.'
Ms Sarkis upset traditionalists in 1996 when she was appointed chief executive of the Church Urban Fund. She landed the job through a headhunter agency that spe- cialises in ethnic recruitment. While her employer, an Anglican charity, was not bothered that she was not a practising Anglican, some Conservatives were — par- ticularly as many of her diatribes targeted stalwarts of the Anglican Church.
Angela Sarkis's Christian faith is clearly sincere. But her qualifications to judge the Two minutes, Mr Gielgud.' suitability or otherwise of very senior pub- lic figures to become legislators are far from obvious. One churchman who has met her several times says, 'She is not a dragon; she can be quite entertaining, but it has to be said that she makes Diane Abbott sound like Ann Widdecombe.'
Less is known about the other two sis- ters. Felicity Huston is chairman of some- thing called the Northern Ireland Consumer Committee for Electricity. Strangely, this organisation does not even have her listed on its automated switch- board. Yet from all accounts this attractive blonde is far from neutral. In 1996 she abandoned her youthful Conservatism and stood in Northern Irish elections for the right-on Women's Coalition against the established parties. Someone who has worked closely with her says, 'We have to be very politically correct now in Northern Ireland, and from what I have seen of her she will be very keen on quotas for women and suchlike.'
Dame Deirdre Hine at least earns a few lines in Who's Who, having carved out a solid career in the civil service. She rejoices in the wonderful title (reminiscent of the Attlee years) of chairman of the Commis' sion for Health Improvement. A member of the Welsh Taffia, this matronly figure has produced booklets on breast screening and was chairman of a nannyish No Snick' ing Day campaign. As for Lord Stevenson, he may not be high-profile but as chairman of Pearson he is certainly a person of substance. One thing most political observers agree MI, however, is that he is not impartial. Fe gave Peter Mandelson a job at his manage' ment consultancy firm SRU before he became an MP. The two men rernaT friends. More recently, Mandelson 's (admittedly able) spinner, Ben Wegt Prosser, was employed by Pearson after Mandelson was forced to resign from the Cabinet, leaving Ben jobless. One of the biggest fixers in London, Stevenson is no01- inally a cross-bencher but, as we know' some are more across the bench than oth' ers. He is that rare breed so beloved of No. 10: a businessman sympathetic to Labour (his membership of Brooks's aside). If Tony telephoned to say that he wanted 3 crony in the Lords, would Stevenson have the independence or inclination to refuse? The Lords Appointments Commission appointed by Blair, watched over by PdalAf — will determine the composition character of the Upper House for years' It's enough to make Lloyd George weePd with jealousy. Clearly it was hard to defers t the old hereditary principle. The acelde,Iic of birth worked, purely accidentally, in II`f Tory interest. Blair cannot be accused 15 genealogical gerrymandering, but he A guilty of the very fixing that he was eleefr'' to stamp out.
Jasper Gerard is associate editor of The Spectator.
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