Quiffs are out; in come the bits of rough
Published 23 July 2001
I don't suppose you could find two heroes more unlikely. Kenneth Clarke and Gwyneth Dunwoody, both grandly overweight and consistently crumpled, one over 60, the other soon to be over 70, have proved themselves, in the last torrid week of the summer session of parliament, more than a match for their younger, smoother colleagues. Something is happening in British politics, something unexpected - not a swing to the left or right, but a swing from the glib to the gritty.
Clarke, the new frontrunner in the Tory leadership race, and Dunwoody, reinstated after a fierce battle to the chairmanship of the transport select committee, have more in common than first meets the eye. Red-eyed, puffy-faced, sharp-tongued, the pair of them represent the voice of authenticity. They don't suffer fools gladly, and they do not curry favour. They don't visit the image-makers, and they don't sip mineral water.
Their victories, in their separate ways, mark a change of season in British politics, which the government is only just beginning to register. It is no coincidence that the quiffs and the smoothies, the toadies and the spinners, are having a bad time. There is a feeling in this parliament - at last - that what people want is a bit of authenticity. The immaculates are being defeated by the all-too-humans.
I admit it. I punched the air when I heard that the government had been roundly defeated over its brutish sacking of Dunwoody and Donald Anderson from their select committee chairs. What I had not expected, as I headed for a party a few hours later, was that almost every government minister present - and there were plenty - had done the same. It gets better.
The day after the vote, I learnt that three very senior cabinet ministers had privately expressed delight at the back-bench rebellion against their own leader and colleagues. They regard it as politically healthy and a justified rebuke by the legislature to an over-mighty executive. It is true that I also encountered the inevitable spin-doctor, who tried to tell me that this reassertion of their rights by MPs was all "sound and fury signifying nothing". But, overall, the mood in government could best be described as "a great defeat; not many casualties".
So, is anyone upset by what happened? After all, it wasn't just a small victory for the rebels: the government, with a majority of 167, was beaten by 87 votes. No fewer than 124 Labour MPs voted against the government's wishes. Who was responsible for that? The sound of buck-passing was so loud that it almost drowned out the cheers: surprise, surprise, it seems to be no one's fault.
The new chief whip, Hilary Armstrong, has been heavily dumped on. Perhaps, say her defenders, she was trying to read her master's mind and going further than she should have done. But others say that the Leader of the House, Robin Cook, was really at fault, because he insisted that the new select committees should be set up quickly before the summer recess. That certainly meant the usually surer-footed Cook had no chance to assess the mood of the Commons.
Also in the frame is the new party chairman, Charles Clarke, who, people say, has been throwing his weight about on this issue, and encouraged Armstrong not only to do the dirty deed, but to do it in the most hostile and provocative way possible. He likes a good fight. He has one.
And behind them all, denying all knowledge of anything that could in any way be described as control-freakish, is Tony Blair. Dunwoody thinks it was Blair - that he saw the lists and crossed names off. When Frank Field, the former minister for welfare reform, insisted that he saw No 10's fingerprints all over this clumsy attempt to neuter the committees, it was hard to find many who disagreed.
As one government loyalist wryly admitted, it really takes something to turn Gwyneth Dunwoody into a people's heroine. Her social skills leave Mr Toad looking like a humble parson. But while Dunwoody may not be popular, she is respected, and her sacking suggested that, in its second term, this government was going to be even more hardline on dissent than it was in its first.
This message, quite simply, was unacceptable. Robin Cook will have to come up with a wholly new system; backbenchers, unless their nerve fails them at the last minute, have won substantial new powers.
But now what? The Commons rebellion will not, I think, lead to similar votes by Labour MPs against core aspects of the Blair programme. They still want the Prime Minister and the Chancellor to succeed. They know that they, too, will be judged by whether public services really improve. They are neither wreckers nor Trots.
So the likely effect will be subtler. Ministers are now saying - both publicly (see the New Statesman's interview with Alan Milburn, page 18) and privately - that they accept the need for more devolution and for more involvement of the party in delivering and explaining policy. They realise that they cannot simply ram things through the Commons. The new bills being introduced will be preceded by groups of backbenchers being taken into ministers' confidence, allowed early sight of new thinking, and serious cross-questioning. Indeed, on "son of Star Wars", this is already happening.
Naturally, it won't all be one way, or as simple as that. The sacking of Bob Kiley from London Regional Transport was done, cynically, on the day the media were distracted by the Tory leadership upset. Old habits die hard. But the genie of democracy has been uncorked at Westminster. It will not go back easily into the bottle. The rough, the unfashionable, the creased and the unstylish are on the march . . . well, on the slouch, perhaps.
Now is the season for authenticity in politics.
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