Brixton wends its weary way not quite in darkness, but with the shadow of William Hague hanging overhead. A few weeks ago, he came, he saw, but hardly conquered.

Once he declared his intention to visit the police station, the officers instinctively showed they did not want him there. They had to succumb because of protocol. It was a delicate time. Lots of police had been mobilised for one stop-and-search operation, called Windmill. Now another, Operation Tippett, had started.

With the holidays upon us, the snatchers of handbags were about. The community had been informed of the police operation. The CCTV network was all systems go. And officers had been briefed that any person whom they stopped and searched had to be a reasonable suspect. Just being black and young, they were told, was not a basis for being stopped and searched. Nor was being black and driving a flash car. These rules were not gifts or special concessions to the community: this was the law.

The black community in Brixton has, over the years, demanded repeatedly that those safeguards be observed. In return, we have accepted that there are those among us who take their chances in crime, and must expect to be policed, and policed fairly.

Enter Hague to disturb this finely balanced process. Armed with a camera crew, he charged in, Ann Widdecombe in tow. The police refused to have the cameras, and he finally negotiated a private meeting with the local commander, Simon Foy. It was as short as it could be, cold and crisp.

Foy was on his last days in Brixton. I had met him at the very beginning of his tour of duty, several years ago. Denis O'Connor, a former assistant commissioner at the Met, had made several appointments across south London to calm the relationship between blacks and the police. All this was long before the Macpherson report.

We had wanted stop and search to be banned altogether. Police officers, we felt, were incapable of handling this procedure fairly. Riots and social explosions had almost reduced the inner city to chaos and conflict.

Now the prospects look much brighter. Foy and his men have transformed Brixton from a war zone into a remarkably relaxed territory. Hague must have known all of these details, which made his visit even more venal and mischievous. The overwhelming feeling in the station itself was one of unmitigated hostility, even anger.

I got caught up in Operation Windmill. I was sitting in the local juice bar on Coldharbour Lane, having a conversation with the proprietor. I rushed to greet a friend who was the husband of my ex-secretary. She was dying (now dead), and he was broken. He asked for some money and I took out £30 to give him. I was oblivious to the CCTV. In seconds, police officers swarmed about us and accused me of selling dope. I went into a fit. The officers were polite, explained their difficulty and went on their way.

I pondered whether to register a complaint. Then I admitted that there was some cause, if very little, for reasonable suspicion. So I let it pass. I tested my attitude around central Brixton. The general feeling was that the operation was being carried out in the tradition of good policing.

I am certain as the day is long that Widdecombe and Hague were determined to undermine the operation. Widdecombe even incited the police to disaffection. She shouted that anyone who was stopped and searched should be grateful.

Police officers in Brixton have a fair knowledge of who African Caribbean people are, what their history generally is, what forms their political and social attitudes. They have learnt this over the past few years - before and after Macpherson - and they know we are not stooping with our backsides in the air to be kicked around.

Hague and Widdecombe haven't a clue. A Tory government with him as its head, and her at the Home Office, would be a source of constant disorder in the inner cities. I have voted only once in 40 years. I am tempted to return to the polls at the next election.

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