We sought them here, we sought them there, those damned elusive candidates
FRANK JOHNSON
The late election campaign, if it leaves no other lasting influence, has been responsible for several new minor genres of English literature. There is the Missing Person genre. The writer visits the constituency of a politician who does not want to be visited by the writer. Furthermore, he does not want to be visited by any writer. In this election, a disproportionately high number of candidates have gone missing: Mr Vaz, Mr Woodward, Mr Geoffrey Robinson, Mr Letwin. Mr Kenneth Clarke. All have something to hide. That is true of many politicians. But in these cases what they have to hide is themselves.
Missing Person articles are not about the politician, but about the search for the politician. They descend from the quest motive of classical and early modern European literature. In the general-election development of the form, the convention is that the writer always fails to find what he or she quests for.
For the writer to find the politician, for any length of time, is a violation of the genre's canons. It is unfair to the reader; like detective stories that violate the rules by having the policeman as the murderer, as Agatha Christie did in one notorious work. The missing politician can be found, but only fleetingly. The politician spots the writer, says he wants to talk only to constituents, not sneerers from London, and disappears into party HQ, an old people's home, a dustbin, or whatever. Or the writer may have a conversation through the constituency headquarters letterbox with Mr Vaz, especially if Mr Vaz is pretending to be the local imam, professing no knowledge of the MP's whereabouts, and preferably claiming not to speak English. But the writer must not get so far as to interview Mr Vaz in the constituency headquarters office.
Sir David Hare, who travelled around doing election pieces for the Daily Telegraph, did a Missing Persons on Mr Clarke. Mr Clarke, it may be remembered, disappeared from the national campaign, and into his Nottinghamshire constituency, because he did not want to be asked questions about his differences with the Tory leadership on Europe.
Sir David's was not a pure example of the genre, since when the writer found the fugitive, the latter did seem prepared to talk. The piece was notable, however, for its violation of another genre. It was the first piece ever written about Mr Clarke that made it clear that the writer did not much like him. Mr Clarke is accustomed only to good publicity. Articles about 'Ken' themselves constitute a genre. Its convention is 'lovable Ken'; or the Blair-would-not-smile-so-much-if-Ken-wereleading-the-Tory-Party conceit.
Yet Sir David, as well as casting doubt on Mr Clarke's fabled affability, actually wrote that he was dirty. The good-old-Ken genre is exclusively left-wing. Its authors are people who would never vote for Mr Clarke's party, even if Mr Clarke were leader. So Mr Clarke is accustomed to being appreciatively written up by writers of the Left, especially old Labour types, of whom none is more distinguished than Sir David. Both sides know the form. Mr Clarke is puffed in order to do down whoever is Tory leader. All concerned are well satisfied, except of course whoever is Tory leader. This must be why Mr Clarke gave Sir David more time than he would have given to a visitor from the Right. Yet here is this sound man of the Left casting doubt on the efficacy of his personal hygiene. Serves Mr Clarke right, or indeed left. How I laughed.
Despite Mr Clarke's efforts in the campaign's last week, the Independent had a front-page lead about remarks, implicitly critical of the Tory leadership's line on Europe. that Mr Clarke made at a public meeting with the other candidates in his constituency. Being a missing person, Mr Clarke had succeeded in banning television cameras from the meeting. He forgot about tape recorders. I gather that Labour taped his remarks and ensured that they reached the Independent. This gave me my second laugh in an otherwise gloomy campaign.
The most exciting Missing Clarke story was at the weekend. One Saturday or Sunday paper — I cannot remember which — had Mr Clarke, having spotted the approaching writer, making his getaway in a car. The writer jumps into his own car to give pursuit. Whereupon a Nottinghamshire Tory uses his own car to block the writer's. This was an example of how, in literature, pure genres are quickly sullied; a routine but perfectly satisfactory Missing Clarke story becomes a potential 'heist movie'. We purists deplore the development.
Another genre produced by the campaign was the 'Patten to Speak Out'. In this the European Commissioner is going to say something. It is of such import that he must wait until election day has passed before he can say it. For what Mr Patten is going to say concerns Europe. The writer actually seems to think that the reader will be in any doubt, that the reader will speculate: What is Mr Patten going to say? It must be something new, something tremendous, something that could affect the Conservative prospects in the election, otherwise he would say it now. For example, is he going to say that membership of the European Union has proved a disaster for Britain, and we must withdraw? The 'Patten to Speak Out' is intended as a cliffhanger.
The third contribution to the English literary canon for which the 2001 election will be remembered is the 'Great Journalist, Boris, Pity About the Politician' genre. The writer goes to Henley in search of its Conservative candidate, this magazine's editor. Unlike in the case of Mr Vaz, etc., the writer finds him. There follows a physical description. Mr Johnson seems to have a small haystack on his head. His tailor seems to be Oxfam. Then we turn to policy. Mr Johnson does not seem to know any policy. But that does not matter because he admits it, and in any case everyone likes him. Off to canvass. The writer drags in P.G. Wodehouse. A voter asks him about some local concern: delays at hospital outpatients, excessive noise from chiming doorbells, or whatever. Mr Johnson either says he does not know about that, or mumbles 'key issue'; sometimes both. He is loved even more.
I regret not having contributed work in any of these forms myself. I shall be left out of any forthcoming anthology of genre-writing from the 2001 election. Perhaps that is just as well. I would have tried to be too clever. For example, I might have rented a house in the most marginal ward, Mr Mandelson's Hartlepool, or Mr Woodward's St Helens South, so that the candidate called on me rather than me on him. Mr Mandelson's bodyguard from his Ireland days, seeing him recoil in terror as the door opened, would have done his duty and shot me dead.
Renting a place in Henley would have been expensive for what you get. Not what you would have got from Mr Johnson, of course. I would have tried to trip him up by asking something like, 'Surely you agree with me that there must be some sort of new Bretton Woods system which we could build on?' Perhaps, with luck, he would have assured me that Bretton Woods is a super part of the constituency, and he is against any building on it. He could count on my support.
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