The killer instinct
In this extract, from Yes, Prime Minister, the Prime Minister has just resigned. There are two candidates to be the new Prime Minister, Eric Jeffries and Duncan Short, both of them ministers in the present government. Another minister, Jim Hacker, also wants the job. He has recently learnt some scandalous information about events in the pasts of the other two candidates, so now he has the opportunity to make them withdraw. This is an extract from his diary.
I told Duncan that some information had come my way. Serious information. To do with his personal financial operations. I referred to the collapse of Continental and General.
He argued that there was nothing improper about that. I replied that technically there wasn't, but if you looked at it in conjunction with a similar case at Offshore Securities ... I indicated that, if he stayed in the running for PM[, I would be obliged to share my knowledge with senior members of the party, the Fraud Squad, and so forth. The Americans would also have to know. And Her Majesty...
He panicked. 'Hang on! Financial matters can be misinterpreted.'
I sipped my drink and waited. It didn't take long. He said that he didn't really want Number Ten2 at all. He felt that the Foreign Office was a much better job in many ways. 'But I won't support Eric!' he insisted body.
'How would it be if you transferred all your support to someone else?' I suggested.
Duncan looked blank. 'Who?'
'Someone who recognized your qualities. Someone who'd want you to stay on as Foreign Secretary. Someone who would be discreet about Continental and General. Someone you trust.'
Gradually, I saw it dawning upon him. 'Do you mean—you?'he asked.
I pretended surprise. 'Me? I have absolutely no ambitions in that direction.'
'You do mean you,' he observed quietly. He knows the code.
*
I told Eric what I knew. He went pale. 'But you said you were going to help me get elected Prime Minister.'
I pointed out that my offer to help him was before my knowledge of the shady lady from Argentina. And others. 'Look, Eric, as party Chair¬man I have my duty. It would be a disaster for the party if you were PM and it came out. I mean, I wouldn't care to explain your private life to Her Majesty, would you?'
'I'll withdraw,' he muttered.
I told him reassuringly that I would say no more about it. To anyone.
He thanked me nastily and snarled that he supposed that bloody Duncan would now get Number Ten.
'Not if I can help it,' I told him.
'Who then?'
I raised my glass to him, smiled and said, 'Cheers.'
The penny dropped3. So did his lower jaw. 'You don't mean — you?'
Again I put on my surprised face. 'Me?' I said innocently. 'Our chil¬dren are approaching the age when Annie and I are thinking of spending much more time with each other.'
He understood perfectly. 'You do mean you.'
Adapted from Yes, Prime Minister by Antony Jay & Jonathan Lynn,
1 PM is short for ‘Prime Minister’
2 Number Ten Downing Street is where the Prime Minister lives
3 Eric finally understood (that Hacker intended to be PM)
A freeloader is somebody who arranges to get food, drink, and other benefits without having to pay or work for them. The British media is fond of suggesting that this is what government ministers and MPs are. It often has stories about the ‘scandalous’ amounts of money they spend in the course of their official duties. Fingers are pointed at individuals who, for example, take a special flight across the Atlantic rather than an ordinary one, or stay at five-star hotels rather than cheaper ones. Figures are often published showing the total value of the ‘perks’ of government ministers-their rent-free residences, the cars and drivers at their disposal, and so on.
But really, this is a peculiarly British preoccupation. British politicians generally live poorly when compared to their counterparts in other European countries. British public life is habitually mean with expenses. As one British minister said in 1999, ‘When you go abroad, the hospitality exceeds ours. The food and wine on offer has to be sampled to be believed’. On the other hand, ‘the wine served at our receptions would be rejected from the Oddbins bargain basement. It is filth’. (Oddbins is a chain of drinks shops.)
Other countries regard the eating, travelling and entertaining standards of their government representatives as a matter of national prestige. But not the British. More important to them is that their politicians don’t get too many big ideas about themselves.
In 1992, the existence of MI6, the British Secret Service, was publicly admitted by government for the first time. Nobody was surprised. Everybody already knew that there was a secret service, and that its name was MI6. But the admission itself was a surprise. British governments do not like public revelations of their activities, even if these are no longer secret. (In this case, the reason for the new openness was that, with the cold war over, it was considered necessary to admit the existence of MI6, so that it could justify why it needed money from taxpayers.)
During the 1980s, for instance, the government tried to prevent the publication of the book Spycatcher (the memoirs of an MI6 agent), even after it had already been published in several other countries and could therefore not contain any genuine secrets.
Despite greater general openness, the British government still sometimes charges people with breaking the Official Secrets Act. In 2007 it successfully prosecuted a government official and a political researcher, who were sent to prison for six months and three months respectively, for telling the press about what the American president said at a meeting with the British Prime Minister. It even tried to prevent the press from reporting this same case, but was eventually unsuccessful.
The headquates of MI6 on the bank of the Thames at Vauxhall, London.
In modern Britain, the 1950s are often spoken of as a golden age of innocence. But innocence can go hand in hand with ignorance一ignorance of what your government is doing to you. In the early years of the twentieth century, it became clear that British governments in the fifties were prepared to use people as guinea pigs in their military experiments. One spectacular example is the 1952 flood in the village of Lynmouth, widely believed to have been caused by experiments in affecting the weather.
Another is the terrible effects of radiation among the British servicemen who were involved in atomic weapons testing. A third of them died of bone cancer or leukaemia contracted as a direct result of their role in the tests. Worse, many veterans of the tests have incurred genetic disorders that have been passed on to their children. Worse still, evidence suggests that many were deliberately ordered into dangerous positions in order to test the effects of nuclear fallout.
As evidence of this kind emerges, it is perhaps not surprising that British people no longer have the blind trust in the activities of government that they used to.
The pairing system
The pairing system is an excellent example of the habit of cooperation among political parties in Britain. Under this system, an MP of one parry is ‘paired’ with an MP of another party. When there is going to be a vote in the House of Commons, and the two MPs know that they would vote on opposite sides, neither of them bother to turn up for the vote. In this way, the difference in numbers between one side and the other is maintained, while the MPs are free to get on with other work. The system works very well. There is never any ‘cheating’.
The millions who break the law every weekend
The lack of any constitution or unified legal code in Britain results in some curious anomalies. Although British people generally take laws and regulations very seriously, there are a few laws which people routinely break, en masse. Did you know, for example, that millions of English people flout the law every weekend when they play or watch football? Back in medieval times, the king was worried that his soldiers weren’t getting enough archery practice, so he made football illegal. This law has never been repealed. Nobody has ever seen the need to bother.
Similarly, generations of Jewish people have quite happily, and without problems, lived in the English city of Leicester一even though until the year 2000 they were breaking the law by doing so. A thirteenth-century city charter stated that ‘no Jew or Jewess ... to the end of the world, shall inhabit or remain in Leicester’. Clearly this contravened every decent person’s understanding of what is acceptable in a modern democracy. But it was only in 2000 that the city council, mindful of the city’s multicultural image, got round to renouncing the charter.
A guide to British political parties
1. Conservative Party
History
Developed from the group of MPs known as the Tories in the early nineteenth century (see chapter 2) and still often known informally by that name (especially in newspapers, because it takes up less space).
Traditional Outlook
Right of centre; stands for hierarchical authority and minimal government interference in the economy; likes to reduce income tax; gives high priority to national defence and internal law and order.
Since 1979
In government until 1997, aggressive reform of education, welfare, housing and many public services designed to increase consumer-choice and/or to introduce ‘market economics’ into their operation.
Organization
Leader has relatively great degree of freedom to direct policy.
Traditional voters
The richer sections of society, plus a large minority of the working classes.
Money
Mostly donations from business people
2. Labour
History
Formed at the beginning of the twentieth century from an alliance of trade unionists and intellectuals. First government in 1923.
Traditional Outlook
Left of centre; stands for equality, for the weaker people in society and more government involvement in the economy; more concerned to provide full social services than to keep income tax low.
Since 1979
Originally, opposition to Conservative reforms, but then acceptance; in government since 1997, emphasis on community ethics and equality of opportunity rather than equal distribution of wealth; has loosened ties to trade unions (see chapter 15).
Organization
In theory, Policies have to be approved by annual conference; in practice, leader has more power than this implies.
Traditional voters
Working class, plus a small middle-class intelligentsia.
Money
Formerly most from trade unions, now mostly from business people.
3. Liberal democratic
History
Formed in the late 1980s from a union of the Liberals (who developed from the Whigs in the early nineteenth century) and the Social Democrats (a breakaway group of Labour politicians).
Policies
Regarded as centre or slightly 1eft of centre; in favour of greater unification with the EU; more emphasis on the environment than other parties; believes in giving greater powers to local government and reform of the electoral system (see chapter 10).
Traditional voters
From all classes, but more from middle class.
Money
Much poorer than the big two.
4. Nationalist parties
Both Plaid Cymru (‘party of Wales’ in the Welsh language) and the SNP (Scottish National Party) stand ultimately for independence from the UK, although their supporters often include those who just want greater internal self-government.
Both parties have usually had a few MPs at Westminster in the last 50 years, but well under half of the MPs representing their respective countries.
5. Parties in Northern Ireland
The four main parties here represent either the Protestant or the Catholic communities (see chapter 4). The Protestant ones are the Democratic Unionists and the Ulster Unionists and the Catholic ones are Sinn Fein and the Social Democratic and Labour Parry. Between them they normally win all the Irish seats in Westminster and the vast majority of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly. The Alliance Parry, which asks for support from both communities, has a handful of seats in the assembly.
6. Other parties
There are numerous very small parties. The three largest in recent years have been (1) The Green parry, which is supported by environmentalists, (2) The British National Party (BNP), which campaigns against immigration and (3) The United Kingdom Independence Parry (UKIP), which wants Britain to withdraw from the European Union. Partly because of the electoral system (see chapter 10), none of these parties has ever won a seat in Parliament, or even got close to it. But the first two do better in local elections and have a handful of seats on local councils across the country. All three do better in European elections and the Greens and UKIP have won seats in the European parliament.
Private Eye is a well-established satirical magazine. Its cover always shows a photo of a well-known person or event, with satirical captions and speech bubbles added to it. The cover below reflects the feeling in modern Britain that politicians are interested in appearances above all else. It also reflects the feeling that, if you look below the surface, they are all the same. The ‘before’ photo is of Tony Blair, the Labour Prime Minister of Britain from 1997 to 2007. The ‘after’ photo is of David Cameron, who had recently become leader of the Conservative parry. (At that time, 2005, the Conservatives had had three bad election results and four different leaders in eight years. Many people felt that the choice of Cameron was intended to copy Labour.)
Interestingly, when Gordon Brown took over as Prime Minister in 2007, his advisers were careful to present him as a very down-to-earth person, someone who was not interested in image.
Annual party conferences in Britain have nothing to do with genuine debate and everything to do with morale-boosting. TV cameras are there, and the last thing a party wants is to be seen having furious internal arguments. At the same time, it is still expected that speakers addressing the conference will occasionally have to face the odd bit of heckling. Heckling, the shouted interruption of a public speaker, is a time-honoured practice in British politics. It livens up boring speeches and part of the measure of a politician’s worth is his or her ability to deal with it. But not at the 2005 Labour party conference. When Walter Wolfgang, an 82-year-old party veteran, shouted ‘nonsense’ during a speech in which the Foreign Secretary was explaining why British troops were in Iraq, he was astonished to find two large men appear in front of him and then drag him out of the hall. He was arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. ‘New Labour’ always had a reputation for ‘control freakery’. But nobody thought it had gone so far.
Of course, Labour leaders recognized this incident as a public relations disaster and apologized profusely and publicly to Mr. Wolfgang. But they were not so ready with their apologies to the 500 other people outside the conference who were also detained as suspected terrorists, including several for wearing T-shirts with uncomplimentary words about the Prime Minister emblazoned on them. (One of them was a local resident out walking his dog!) Instead, they joined police in attempting to justify this behaviour on the grounds that it ‘sends a clear message to would-be terrorists’.
But what was the message it sent to everybody else?
In 1989, The Satanic Verses was published. It was the work of the respected author Salman Rushdie, a British citizen from a Muslim background. Many Muslims in Britain were extremely angry about the book’s publication. They regarded it as a terrible insult to Islam. They therefore demanded that the book be banned and that its author be taken to court for blasphemy (using language to insult God).
However, to do either of these things would have been directly against the long-established tradition of free speech and freedom of religious views. In any case, there was nothing in British law to justify doing either. There were (and still are) censorship laws, but they related only to obscenity and national security. There was (and still is) a law against blasphemy, but it referred only to the Christian religion. Moreover, the tendency in the second half of the twentieth century had been to apply both types of law as little as possible and to give priority to the principle of free speech.
Whatever one’s views on this matter, it cannot be denied that the law, as it is, appears both to discriminate against religions other than Christianity and to be inconsistent. It appears to be discriminatory because it is only illegal to blaspheme against Christ; it appears inconsistent because to have any blasphemy law at all is a contradiction of the principle of freedom of religious views.
