Marshall arts
Peter °borne had a bet with Lord Marshall that there would be no euro referendum in 2003. He won, and was treated to a slightly edgy dinner at Brown's This interview came about in unusual circumstances. At the start of 2003, in his capacity as chairman of the Britain in Europe campaign, Lord Marshall sent out a New Year message. He predicted two things: there would a euro referendum in 2003 and the Yes campaign would win it. I read this and rubbed my eyes. Even 12 months ago it was perfectly obvious that neither of these claims could be true. First I wondered if Lord Marshall was mad. Then I concluded that he probably was. So I picked up the phone and rang up the Britain in Europe headquarters. The call was answered by one of the former Labour party press officers who manned the BIE campaign.
I told him that I wanted to bet Lord Marshall £1,000 that Britain would not have a referendum in 2003, let alone win it. The press officer attempted to dissuade me, then under duress promised to pass my message on. A week passed with no response, so I rang up the press officer again. He explained that there had been certain difficulties in getting hold of his lordship, that it was a bad time of year, etc. Once again he promised to come back to me.
Another week passed. so I rang the press officer once more. Ah yes, he said, we have spoken to Lord Marshall and, no, he won't accept your £1,000 bet. But he would enter into an arrangement whereby the loser of the bet would buy the winner dinner at the Savoy Grill in 12 months' time. The press officer was extremely keen to stress, however, that Lord Marshall would be entering into no more bets with anybody else concerning the holding of a euro referendum in 2003.
In the autumn I rang back the BIE and said that it was time that Lord Marshall bought me dinner. This time there was no quibbling. He would certainly do so, only he would prefer to go to Brown's Hotel in Albemarle Street, if that was OK. Angelo Maresca, maitre d' at the Savoy Grill, had shifted from the Grill to Brown's. Marshall was a fan of Maresca's and wanted to try out his new establishment.
I was 15 minutes late for dinner. Maresca led me straight to the Marshall table where a pretty fair detachment lay in wait. Besides Marshall himself there was a BIE press officer, not my friend from earlier in the year but a red-haired aspirant Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate. Also in attendance, in some unspecified capacity but as it turned out a perfectly reasonable dinner companion, was a suit from British Airways. Marshall is chairman of British Airways and either chairman or director of a large number of other concerns. To cite them all, as listed in his abnormally long Who 's Who entry, along with all the honorary doctorates, trusteeships etc., that have come his way, would fill up the rest of the space in this article. I put it to him that basically Britain in Europe had been a text-book example of how not to run a campaigning organisation.
Lord Marshall demurred at this assessment. 'Not at all,' he said, adding that BIE had done very well at pushing the virtues of the European single market. Yes, but wasn't the whole point to get Britain into the euro? Yes, said Lord Marshall, and they had worked very hard at that too. And failed? No, circumstances had been very difficult. Lord Marshall wouldn't say that they had failed. We have 12 regions in the UK. Each of these regions has its own board of directors. They are doing what they can.
The trouble is.' he reflected mournfully, 'that we have found it very difficult to get funding. You have to have the wherewithal to do the job. You have to have the money. The big money is on the No side because they have a number of extremely successful entrepreneurs willing to donate money. We don't have that.' Lord Marshall produced the word 'entrepreneurs' with a certain amount of venom. He is a big corporation man, with a gleaming HQ in Berkeley Square. Many of the backers of BIE — Niall FitzGerald of Unilever is a close associate — are multinationals. Lord Marshall argued that 'crazy election regulations' make it more difficult for them to raise cash.
Fairly early on in the evening, I took out my notebook. Lord Marshall looked at it suspiciously and expressed alarm. He hadn't expected to be interviewed and thought we were just having dinner. 'It most definitely is an on-the-record interview,' I replied, and I am taking down every word.' Lord Marshall digested this information, and found it quite disagreeable. For one happy moment I thought he was about to get up and leave the restaurant, taking his entourage with him. But if he contemplated such a dramatic course of action, he thought better of it. 'You will misrepresent every word I say, I am sure,' commented Lord Marshall, severely.
The waiter came, and took orders. I made for the native oysters and the roast grouse — so far as I could see the two most expensive items on the menu. Lord Marshall seemed not to mind, or perhaps didn't notice. Did you actually believe that rubbish you put out at the start of the year,' I asked. 'or were you just saying it for effect?' He had believed every word, he insisted. I asked him whether he still believed that a referendum was on the cards, and he said that he did. 'The referendum will happen at a point in time,' he declared. 'I don't rule it out before the election.' I expressed incredulity, but his lordship insisted: 'You cannot rule out the possibility.' At some stage the red-headed press officer attempted to intervene and answer Lord Marshall's questions for him. But I told him that I was interviewing Marshall and not him. and he shut up.
I wondered whether Lord Marshall felt let down by Tony Blair, and it emerged that he did not. 'The Prime Minister has made it very clear,' declared Marshall, 'that he believes that our destiny is in the single currency when he and Gordon Brown believe that the time is right.' So Marshall was happy with the Chancellor over the euro? 'I am not unhappy with the position he has taken,' replied the BIE chairman. 'But he's the one who's stopped us going in.' He hasn't stopped us at all,' replied Marshall. 'We will enter when the time is right.'
This declaration of support for the Chancellor from the leader of the proEuropean camp was so striking that I asked Lord Marshall if he agreed that his BIE campaign had been pathetic. 'We are not pathetic at all,' said Marshall. I suggested that the Britain in Europe campaign had allowed itself to become a mouthpiece of the government rather than an independent campaigning organisation. But by now it was getting late, and baiting poor Marshall was losing its savour. His inevitable answer that BIE was 'completely independent' no longer aroused angry contempt but a kind of bland stupor. We talked of other things. Business was picking up at British Airways he said, but nothing that a terrorist outrage wouldn't stop. After a while he mused that there was no chance of a euro referendum before the election. He proved to have surprisingly robust views about government plans to suppress hunting. Colin Marshall isn't a bad man: just a booby.
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