POLITICS
Pink champagne, Red Ken and al fresco sodomy
BRUCE ANDERSON
Mr Blair is a pretty straight sort of guy. Well he must be, mustn't he? We have his word for it. So when he assures us that his sole motive in seeking to ban Miss Ros Mark's book is to protect his children's pri- vacy, it would be churlish not to believe him. Who could possibly suspect that Mr Blair wants to suppress the information that Gordon Brown is rude to nannies, while Peter Mandelson comes queening into No. 10 demanding pink champagne? If you take that low view of Tony Blair, you are the type of person who would also believe that he offered the Liberals addi- tional peerages in exchange for good behaviour in the House of Lords. We know that Mr Blair would never behave like that, don't we?
At least as regards his family, I am in a position to prove the PM's innocence. Some appalling cynics have even gone so far as to suggest that Tony Blair actually planned to exploit the birth of his new baby for electoral purposes. Not so. I can exclu- sively reveal that Mr Blair has decreed that the new baby's privacy will be inviolate. There will be no publicity. Any pictures will be reserved solely for the family photo- graph album. So there. On the basis of that assurance, how can Mr Blair fail to win his injunction?
Nor should one begrudge Mr Blair's min- isters the occasional glass of champagne. Douglas Hurd once wrote that the country would be better governed if politicians drank more champagne and less whisky. Admittedly, Lord Hurd was thinking of the straw-coloured variety. Pink champagne is more actresses' slippers than Cabinet min- isters' offices. But Peter Mandelson is enti- tled to his tastes — or at least he would be, in a normal week.
This week, however, there is something that makes Mr Mandelson's pink cham- pagne stick in one's craw. While his drink- ing habits were being publicised, the Ulster Secretary himself was insisting that he would press ahead with his plans to insult the Royal Ulster Constabulary and its mur- dered officers by forcing the RUC to aban- don its name and its cap badge.
The 307 men and women of the RUC who fell in the front line of the battle against terrorism did not drink much pink champagne. They merely shed red blood. Everyone is allowed to be frivolous in their leisure hours: even Northern Ireland secretaries. But the holders of that great office do have a duty to confine their frivolity to their off-duty pursuits, something Mo Mowlam was incapable of doing. Peter Man- delson should have been an improvement. After all, as Dr Mowlam recently revealed, he has not once spoken to her since he took her job: an accurate assessment of the value of what she might have told him. But it is no good Mr Mandelson's shunning Dr Mowlam's gaffe-prone frivolity if he him- self has a cold frivolity in his soul. Yet his attitude to the RUC admits of no other explanation. Only someone dead to all con- siderations of decency and honour could ever contemplate dishonouring the dead of the RUC. It is a policy worthy of Ken Living- stone: pink champagne and Red Ken.
I hope Mr Mandelson chokes on his next glass of champagne. His tastes in drink are not worthy to be bracketed with Douglas Hurd's. Lord Hurd was a fine foreign secre- tary, a job Mr Mandelson wants. But there was once a champagne salesman who became a foreign minister. If Mr Mandel- son ever holds that post, he will not be in the Hurd mould, but the Ribbentrop one. Reinhard Spitzy should write Peter Man- delson's biography.
With name eradication, Mr Mandelson may wish to Livingstone-ise the RUC; Mr Blair would prefer to eradicate Ken Living- stone's name. In trying to do so, however, he may well have ensured that Mr Living- stone wins the mayoral election — and we should be wary of taking other elections for granted. A Downing Street which can dis- play tactical ineptitude on the scale of the last few days is not as invincible as it has hitherto seemed.
Not only is there a case to be made against Ken Livingstone, it should be an unanswerably strong one. Mr Livingstone has spent most of the past two decades con- demning himself out of his own mouth. To destroy him, it should only be necessary to quote him — but in the right tone of voice. There should be badinage, not bile; mock- ery, not petulance. It should not be impossi- ble to persuade Londoners that Ken Living- stone is merely a dim little man with demented opinions. It should never be impossible to persuade people of the truth.
Instead of persuasion, however, Mr Blair has simply stamped his foot. He has decided that Frank Dobson should be Mayor of London; how dare Ken Livingstone or anyone else gainsay him? It is not an impressive spectacle, and there is a mid- term feeling around, even if the polls do not reflect it. Over the past few days, Tony Blair has been asking for a good tail-twisting; the voters of London will be happy to oblige.
That said, Tony Blair and Frank Dobson have not yet won the award for the worst mayoral campaign; Steve Norris has been running them close. I persist in believing that Mr Norris is the only serious politician in the race, but he has been trying hard to prove me wrong. Without grovelling to the press, a sensible Tory candidate would wish to secure the endorsement of the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph; neither paper is without influence in Tory households. But last weekend, Steve Norris attacked them both. Strangely enough, they hit back. Mr Norris, meanwhile, seemed preoccupied with setting new records in political gym- nastics, by keeping both feet in his mouth while bending over forwards to accommo- date the demands of Peter Tatchell and the militant homosexual lobby.
There is no reason why homosexuality should become an issue in the mayoral campaign. Most ordinary Londoners are happier to tolerate homosexuals than many homosexuals are to tolerate ordinary peo- ple. 'Let them do what they like,' said Mrs Patrick Campbell, 'as long as they don't frighten the horses.' The updated equiva- lent might be, 'as long as they don't litter Hampstead Heath with condoms': hardly an unreasonable demand.
But as Mr Norris insists on joining the two Labour candidates in proclaiming the delights of al fresco sodomy, the real issues go neglected. Crime, education, health, transport: those are Londoners' concerns. Mr Norris could announce that even if his powers were limited, he would still harass the government night and day on London's behalf. Contrast this, he could say, with Frank Dobson, that new canine species, a bearded poodle — or with Ken Living- stone, a loony. The Left offers two choices, Mr Norris could conclude: a stooge or a straitj acket.
But if Mr Norris is not careful, the two of them could beat him into third place. By midweek, however, there were the first signs that his campaign was improving. It certainly needs to. In contrast, the cam- paign to save the RUC is already gaining momentum, and has hardly begun.
Previous page
