ANOTHER VOICE

Mr Blair swoops to mercy, but just the once

MATTHEW PARRIS

t Thomas's hospital, just over the bridge from Westminster, is highly conve- nient for Downing Street. News last week that the Prime Minister had swooped unexpectedly on the Accident and Emer- gency ward there was greeted by most Commons journalists with a hollow laugh. Immediately the Diana comparisons began. She was the People's Princess, and here, now, was the People's Prime Minis- ter. But a point of difference was noted between the two. The late Princess of Wales was sufficiently cool in her secret charity to be sure that the secret would get out without the need for her to broadcast it. As the Gospels remind us, the Lord, who sees us in secret, will reward us open- ly. Anticipating the Lord, Mr Blair told the BBC, just in case.

He did not need to, for to premiers and princesses is granted an unusual privilege. They may have the cake of modesty yet eat the cookie of fame. Too many people will have witnessed the Blair visit for his secret to be keepable. If the Prime Minister had not told BBC listeners the very next morn- ing about his midnight errand, the story would anyway have appeared in the papers.

To the golden opinions he might have won for bothering to visit would have been added our respect for his trying — sadly without success — to keep virtue hidden. Instead, he had to blab about it. Diana would never have done that. Interesting, this insecurity: perhaps the most interesting thing of all. Not for the first time we notice not how relentless is New Labour's image- projection, but how cack-handed.

And yet as Britain sniggered I felt some sympathy for Mr Blair. Remembering my own years as an elected politician, I could guess his feelings. Our Prime Minister, who is neither wicked nor insensitive, will have felt sore that his motives were impugned. To himself he will not have represented that dash to St. Thomas's as a heartless PR manoeuvre, but as a well-meant attempt to show he cared. I imagine it was the same with Diana.

Nobody enters politics without a streak of exhibitionism, but nor do you enter indif- ferent to the wellbeing of those who elect you. You really do want to help — and you really do want people to know it. Nor do you quite separate the two. You do not see your bids for the status of a local (or national) saint as a cynical grab for person- al advantage, but a sincere attempt to rebut misunderstandings about you.

When touring the A & E ward (or visit- ing the old people's homes in the summer recess, as I used to do), you are not cack- ling (even to yourself), 'Ho, ho! All these stupid people think I'm here out of sympa- thy. Little do they know — tee-hee — that I couldn't care less about their problems. I just want to look good.' In two decades of observing politicians I have met not one in a hundred who thinks like that — though in Smoking Room banter they like to pretend to. If there is a job in which a cynicism unredeemed by sympathy is not unusual, it is the work of a TV researcher or general reporter; but even in journalism the mon- sters are a minority.

When, as an MP, a PM or a princess, you are with people in difficulty or pain, you feel for them. You are human. Sometimes your eyes fill with tears. Unlike the journal- ist you would almost never do anything to hurt them — and when you can help the pleasure is genuine and vast. But at the same time a little demon voice in the back of your brain keeps reminding you how helpful it would be if your niceness were . . . well, more widely understood. Prime ministers, of course, have something more than that little voice: they have the louder whisper of an Alastair Campbell who not only shares their wish for media coverage, but is well-placed to arrange it.

I have supped with these demons and I acknowledge them. When, one Christmas morning, I decided to share the day with the prisoners in Sudbury open prison as their MP, I seem to remember that the Derby Evening Telegraph, the Ashbourne News Telegraph, the Buxton Advertiser, the Matlock Mercury and the Derbyshire Times did somehow get to hear about it. But I also remember that I learned something and understood the prison and its inmates bet- ter afterwards.

`Someone told me that it's an endangered plant.' It is harder for prime ministers. For a start, the opportunity for anonymity (which, believe it or not, lesser MPs sometimes take) is simply not open to them. Unlike the princes of storybook legend, premiers do not feel able to don an old cloak and disap- pear into the multitude; even a more con- ventional impromptu sally is out of the ques- tion, or thought to be. Cabinet ministers are quickly made to feel the power that civil ser- vants and security boffins wield. Officials hate the impromptu as a vicar hates sin.

I remember John Major remarking with real remorse that he felt like a prisoner: he had no way of finding out what people were thinking and saying any more. He could no longer travel on the Tube and overhear. The overheard is one of the great, unac- knowledged sources of the assessments we make about public mood. Premiers are absolutely barred from it.

And so from time to time they organise impetuous little journeys like Mr Blair's slightly premeditated swoop on St Thomas's. The motives are part-calculated, part-genuine. The sneers of the media are unfair, but if they discourage these adven- tures, then that is for the best. Well-inten- tioned or not, a proliferation of organised surprises would not be helpful to public life.

The problem is that the currency of the mercy-swoop is so easily devalued. With grim rapidity, one prime minister's habit of looking in on the public, unannounced, will set a benchmark by which all aspirants for public affection will be judged. Gordon Brown managed a children's party before his Budget last year; Tony Blair has con- trived a trolley-stalk at St Thomas's before his first Question Time this year; William Hague then took himself fast to St Mary's in Paddington; next, one fears, Robin Cook will be found among orphans, or Peter Mandelson will rescue a singed cat — and be rumoured to have started the fire beforehand, too. Within a few years the press or political enemies will start com- plaining when a cabinet minister seems not to be mercy-swooping often enough.

The Queen used to steer clear of disas- ters and public funerals. She broke the taboo. Now we moan when she doesn't turn up. Let royalty's miscalculation be Downing Street's guide.

Matthew Parris is parliamentary sketchwriter and a columnist of the Times.