Man in a white suit on a mission
By Tony Watts - Editor - 14/11/2007
Martin Bell is angry. Angry in a way that only comes from someone who feels that his hopes and trust have been betrayed.
After accepting the invitation to stand as an Independent against Neil Hamilton in the 1997 general election – the Labour and Lib Dem candidates standing aside to give him a clear shot – he was as enthusiastic as many a Labour MP about the direction Tony Blair wanted to take.
Blair’s promises to “clean up politics”, and “renew faith in politics” and Cook’s promises of an ethical overseas policies were heady stuff to the new MP who had played what he calls in his book “a walk-on part” in
the “popular insurrection against dodgy politics”. His voting record in
the early days shows his broad support for Labour.
The white suit, for which he was best known, seemed a symbol of the
transparency and honesty within politics that he was aspiring to
achieve and his “ticket” since then has been to speak out against the
machinations of politics: like Alec Guinness in “The Man in the White
Suit”, the independent spirit fighting against the machine.
He went on to be given a seat on the Select Committee on Standards and
Privileges… and it was not too long before disillusion set in. His new
book goes into chapter and verse on the string of incidents (or
“scandals” depending on your stance) such as Bernie Ecclestone’s
donations; David Blunkett’s acceleration of a visa for his lover’s
nanny; Blunkett’s undeclared shareholdings; Peter Mandelson’s mortgage
and dealings with Srichand Hunduja; various unseemly liaisons and the
whole business of cash for peerages…
The work of the very first Standards Committee Chairman (Elizabeth
Filkin) was undermined, he says, and the work of the next one sidelined
as the parties closed ranks. For senior ministerial incidents, Tony
Blair retained the right to be judge and jury.
But to Bell, the overriding charge against the Labour Government was
its decision to join the USA and invade Iraq on the flimsiest of evidence. Again, the book goes into considerable depth about why this was never a sustainable, let alone justifiable, decision. So just why, I ask, did we go in?
“I think Blair was afraid of being outflanked by the right,” he says.
“Iain Duncan Smith, at the time, had links with the neocons in the USA.
Bill Clinton had left office and Blair felt the need to cosy up to the
new President.
“He is a red carpet politician. He loves the invitations to the White
House and Camp David.
“This was also a Cabinet that had never known the realities of war.
When Thatcher took us into the Falklands, there were people like
Carrington and Whitelaw who knew exactly what war was like. There had
been a ‘success’ in Kosovo, and Blair felt the same could be achieved
in Iraq.”
The accusation now, of course, is that Blair lied to people over the
evidence of WMDs. “I don’t think he knowingly lied. I think he deceived
himself. An MP came up to me recently and said that he couldn’t
conceive of a Government misrepresenting the facts – which is why they
got the support they did from politicians and the public.”
The problem, as he explains, is that Britain no longer has the resources to fight wars on two major fronts, as in Afghanistan and Iraq. “There’s always been this impression that Britain punches above its weight, that our soldiers are the best. That they can perform miracles.
“That is certainly true. But no matter how well you fight there’s always going to come a time when someone comes along and clobbers you. Our top soldiers are, now, speaking out about being under resourced. It’s a shame that some of them didn’t do so before.
“The soldiers were disaffected with this operation from the time that the WMDs failed to materialize. It’s not that difficult for soldiers at the very top to speak out: it’s the last job they’re going to hold. For soldiers a few rungs down the ladder it can be difficult. And there has always been this tradition of the military deferring to the civil power.
“It’s just that, in this case, the civil power got it spectacularly wrong.”
So, bearing in mind that we re-elected Tony Blair after the invasion, do we get the politicians we deserve, I ask. “I hope we deserve better,” he says. “That said, the majority are decent and hardworking, but a lot of them do tend to be very ambitious individuals.
“There has also been a move away from the old politics where individuals and mavericks could have a place in Parliament – the Tam Dayells of this world. You need more independents in politics and fewer ‘autoconformists’. It can happen. I was the first independent MP for almost 50 years, and the House now has two.
“But it’s very hard to get elected without a party behind you. And you
do need political parties to bind people to a common purpose. I’m being
wistful, but a greater level of independence would be a good thing. Too
much of the politics in the house is tribal. The furniture doesn’t help: facing the opposition who are two swords’ lengths away. A round chamber might help, but that’s never going to happen!”
When not saying his piece in parliament or being confronted by Christine Hamilton on Knutsford Heath, Bell has also, famously, spent a lot of his journalistic career working in some of the most dangerous places in the world, covering 11 wars – including the Middle East. Does he have any hope that the situation there can ever be resolved?
“It’s hard to be optimistic,” he concedes. “Ironically, of course. Tony
Blair has now gone there to try and help find a solution. But sometimes
things change. Look at Northern Ireland. Wars can end. Why did it happen there? Because the people grew tired of it.”
Was he surprised by the change in heart by Ian Paisley? “I’d call it an
epiphany,” he says. “He and I do go a long way back. He has set his
thugs on me before now, but I was also the one who helped make him so
well known. When he came out of prison I’d be there with a microphone.”
As a journalist he is scathing about the role that parts of the media have played in the Iraq War, describing some commentators and proprietors as “cheerleaders” for the war. “Even now they have never apologized for that or admitted they might have got it wrong,” he says.
“To their credit, the New York Times and Washington Post have.” He is
also, though, not an advocate of “neutral reporting”: in his view,
journalists have a responsibility to speak out against injustices where
they see them. That is never an easy position to hold for a broadcast
journalist.
These days he is spending a lot of his time back in one of the theatres
of war he once reported on, Afghanistan, but this time his role is
humanitarian: he is an ambassador for UNICEF. But even if the object of
much of the anger in his book, Tony Blair, has now left the scene, he
is still keeping a keen eye on British politics.
What, I ask him, does he make of Gordon Brown? “I’m hopeful,” he says.
“He’s made quite a good start: he recognizes that there has been a loss
of trust, that the British public is disaffected. And David Cameron
seems keen not to pursue the ‘yah boo’ style of politics. He’s made an
interesting start but I’m not fully sure what he stands for.”
“The Truth That Sticks” is a powerfully written book that, while not
shedding much new light on the Blair years, puts a lot of the
criticisms made against him in one place… while not dwelling on any of
the many positive changes achieved in his ten years. It’s the work of
someone made angry through disillusionment, let down by the dream that
he – and many others – bought into.
The end of the book reflects that, and in an interesting way. While
much of the book is unconcealed invective, the last chapter ends on a
very different note.
“The former Prime Minister,” he writes, “who dominated British politics
for ten years, has an opportunity now which, were he to grasp it, would
secure his reputation as not just the most successful vote-winner in
the party’s history but also a great and good man.
“It is to admit the magnitude of the mistake… and to express at least a
measure of contrition.”