Little man with a grudge
Jeremy Clarke
tanding directly behind our Minister of OState for Rural Affairs and Local Environmental Quality on the deep carpet of the conference room at the Thistle Hotel, Exeter, while he gave a press conference, I took the opportunity to examine the man behind the anodyne words issuing from his mouth. The design on Mr Alun Michael's tie — overlapping skewed tan and orange oblongs — was, to the best of my knowledge, ideologically neutral. His double-breasted business suit was nothing special. His unostentatious shoes were creased with age. (Mr Michael's appearances in the countryside have lately turned into rumbustious affairs; perhaps the minister prudently leaves his best ones at home.) Neither did the visible parts of his body betray any evidence of character. No flamboyant touches had been added to his ultra-fine, greying hair. The superficial lines and creases on his soft, white, cleanshaven face were almost invisible under daylight. I craned forward and smelt him, but his scent gave no clue, either, to the man. He smells slightly antiseptic, like a political pamphlet. The one indication of character afforded by Mr Michael's physical appearance is, perhaps, his height. Stalin was only five feet four inches tall. At just an inch or two taller, maybe Mr Michael is also a little man with a grudge.
I don't have a press pass. My brother. a Devon and Cornwall police sergeant drafted in to protect the minister during his flying visit to Exeter, let me in to the press conference on condition that I didn't try to make a name for myself by punching his visiting dignitary's teeth out on sight. In any case, the new Hunting with Dogs Bill isn't law yet, cautioned my brother (the sensible one of the family), and there's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip.
I didn't stay long at the press conference. It was too frustrating to listen to the smooth political cant he was feeding the television interviewers. Frustrating to listen to the way it was gobbled up, too. And very frustrating to be within arms' length of the man, yet seeing in the doorway beyond him my brother in riot gear, urging me to take the Aristotelean, moderationin-all-things view, as he is expected to do every working day of his life.
An aide pulled the plug on the press conference. The minister marched to the banqueting suite to address the Association of National Parks Authorities Conference 2004 — 'Rising to the Challenge'. Once more he was wired up, and, following a thumbs-up from the man behind the sound desk, out came the measured jet of bullshit. The minister would like National Parks 'to become places where socially and economically integrated communities live in harmony with their environment'. He would also like to see National Parks 'become places where the achievements of the past are balanced with the needs of the future'. Over 200 National Park rangers' beards were paying rapt attention to this stuff.
Opposite the hotel, on the other side of the street, behind a row of police barriers and a line of policemen, about 400 noisy pro-hunt protesters had gathered. I'm not a fox-hunter. I'm more of a coursing person. And I know that there are fox-hunters who think hare coursing isn't cricket. For a long time, the smart money was on the foxhunting-dominated pro-hunt lobby doing a deal and selling hare coursing down the river. But surprisingly they didn't. I listened to Mr Michael for as long as I could. then I went outside to add my voice to theirs as the minister left the hotel.
I stood behind one of the portable police barriers. Nearby was the Master of Fox Hounds of our local hunt. Under the Conservatives this mauve-faced man used to swear vilely at me and my well-mannered Jack Russells if he saw us in the field; but since New Labour came to power he's curbed his language remarkably. We nodded bleakly at one another.
The only way the minister could leave the hotel was via the main entrance. At half past six, two hours later than expected, his driver parked his plum-coloured Vauxhall Omega 2.6 as close to the door as possible and left the engine running. The line of traffic cones across the hotel forecourt was removed and a squad of policemen, including my brother, emerged from the hotel, marched across the road and reinforced their colleagues lining the portable barriers. A shriller, expectant note could now he heard among the hunting horns: the fox was about to bolt from his earth.
It was over in seconds. Mr Michael came out. the sky was suddenly black with invective and airborne eggs, and he dived into the front seat of the car. There was so much egg over the car that the driver had to operate the windscreen wipers before moving off. Further down the road, demonstrators jumped all over the car and fighting broke out. Taking the Aristotelean view for the time being, I gave Mr Michael a lovely smile and left it at that.
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