A Wounded Tiger At Bay In Pakistan
With the Wounded Tiger Cricket Tour of Pakistan 2014: a few personal notes
Weds Nov 5: satisfactory PIA overnight flight to Lahore, although unable to resort to normal longhaul relief by drinking myself insensible (cf Squire Haggard). To refurbished Faletti’s Hotel, Lahore, used by visiting Test sides and by Ava Gardner and Stewart Granger during filming of Bhowani Junction (directed by George Cukor) in 1956. (She went out to the cinema to see herself in The Barefoot Contessa, complained about the smells and drank a lot of gin). Bechstein baby grand in lounge but many notes wrecked long before I could get at them.
Visit celebrated Gander’s Sports Store, Lahore, founded 1935. Patronized by past cricket stars. Family business, operated by Mr Hussain Malik, grandson of founder. He tells me sports goods business struggling in Pakistan, largely because prices of good kit are out of reach of many families, although we buy two team bags full of good pads, bats, balls, other items, for just over a third of comparable English prices. (To be presented to deserving recipients when tour over).
Net practice at historic, lovely Bagh-e-Jinnah ground. With great civility, they reserve us the use of the turf net. Slow wicket but the zombie bounces and turns if and when I can land on it.
Team dinner given by Mueen Afzal, cricket aficiando and former head of Pakistan Treasury. Meet Shaharyar Khan, restored as Chairman of PCB. MA makes speech welcoming Wounded Tiger but dwells on three errors. Give him three of my books nonetheless. Attempt some light cocktail favorites on his piano, but it is badly out of tune.
Thurs Nov 6: “warm-up match” at Mitchell’s Farm ground, in countryside outside Lahore. Attractive setting in midst of orchards and tomato plants used for manufacture of celebrated jams and ketchup. Pitch has an echo of Pakistan’s cricket history – it is matting. Joined by our guest player – the legendary spin genius Abdul Qadir. He is delighted to hear poem about him composed by English fan during 1982 tour: The bold English batsman appears at the crease And tries not to show any fear But the ball’s in the air It’ll spin who knows where? From Abdul the bowling Qadir. I write this out for him in one of my books. The great man (now 61) bowled over 60,000 deliveries in serious cricket but puts same energy into his spell for us – menacing sidestep, bounding run, whirl of the arm, legbreak, googly, flipper each in several different ways. He appeals as fiercely as ever, but to no avail. Heavy defeat in 20-over match. Do not bowl, face last ball. Copybook forward defence. Nought not out. Speeches, in which I present two books.
Friday Nov 7: laid low with mystery flu, probably incubated by aircraft air conditioning. Tropical storm eliminates planned match vs Australian High Commission. Miss team tour of old Lahore and subsequent dinner on rooftop of Cuckoo’s with legendary view over city. Especially annoyed to miss meeting Aftab Gul, former student leader, selected for Tests v England in 1969 for ability to control student demonstrators, although was also successful opening bat in domestic competition. Now radical lawyer, the Michael Mansfield of Pakistan. Vy good company, admirer of Luke Upward.
Saturday Nov 8: recovered sufficiently to act as scorer in emergency fixture against Super Sammy XI, which replaces washed-out fixture at Aitchison College (the Eton of Pakistan). Drive very unpromising, into distant suburb of Lahore, and then along rough farm road to apparent nowhere. Suddenly it reveals exquisite private ground in Lakhodero village, endowed by our host, Mr Mian Akhlaq Guddu, set among green hills, flanked by a graceful mosque. Two fine dressing rooms, each with own golden dome. Greeted by about thirty people – all taking time off work – who garland us with flowers and present us with (little merited) commemorative medallions, prepared at last minute. They are thrilled to meet Abdul Qadir – but just as thrilled to meet the rest of us – first English visitors in twenty-year existence of club. Like all hosts, remarkably civil and attentive. Local scorer politely corrects my errors in another heavy defeat in 20 overs, despite 3-25 from AQ. Refreshments are nearest equivalent on tour to English cricket tea, array of sandwiches, cakes, accompanied by pizza.
Sunday Nov 9: Big 35-over game at beautiful, historic Bagh-e-Jinnah ground, formerly the Lawrence Gardens, where cricket matches have been played since around 1880. It staged Test matches during the 1950s: the last in 1959 against the West Indies, when Mushtaq Mohammad made his debut at the official age of 15. We are further reinforced by Abdul Qadir’s son Suleiman (spinning all-rounder with first-class experience). Led by Javed Zaman, patriarch of Burki family and uncle of three Pakistan captains, Lahore Gymkhana bat first. We reduce them to 19-3 but unbroken partnership then takes them to 204. Arshad Khan (played in ODIs) scores century. I do a lot of diving in field, which pleases spectators, but no bowling. Instead captain Oborne converts me to opening bat – the sacrificial goat for the Wounded Tigers – with aim of seeing off the pace attack or at least forcing it to waste a good ball. Open with Suleiman Qadir, who asks me to avoid run-outs. Good opening bowlers – one sharp mover in air and off seam, one genuinely quick by our normal standards. Score a few with the Erratics/Bushmen get-away-from-me shot and glide a four with soft hands through slips. Then fast chap wastes the good ball – am bowled by inswinging yorker. Receive commiserations from watching Majid Khan (who had refused plea to play for us himself) and British High Commissioner, Mr Philip Barton, so I decide to give the latter Luke Upward. We lose. Match followed by formal launch of Wounded Tiger. Stack of copies rapidly disappears. Say goodbye to Abdul Qadir. As parting gift, teach him grip for the zombie, because art has no frontiers.
Monday Nov 10: flu reappears. Kindly doctor summoned by our Lahore friend Najum Latif (huge contributor to Wounded Tiger and curator of charming museum at Bagh-e-Jinnah ground). Doctor administers injection to each buttock and leaves various medicaments. They work, recover sufficiently to fly to Karachi.
Tuesday Nov 11: overnight at Arabian Seas Country Club, outside Karachi, enterprise of Arif Abbasi, towering figure on past Pakistan cricket administration and pungent critic of present set-up. Also major contributor to Wounded Tiger. Lavish facilities include discreet upstairs bar. Several of the party try out the “cunning” professional golf course (site of the Sind Open) and I loll in the swimming complex (several pools, jacuzzi, sauna and steam room) until discovery that match is to be played as day/night fixture starting at 2 pm. Another shock on arrival at excellent purpose-built ground with pleasing pastiche of Oxford University Parks pavilion: Arif Abbasi has arranged for entire match to be televised ball-by-ball on Pakistan TV sports channel. (Are they that desperate for content?) We field first. Inspired by cameras and personal fan club on North Bank I bring off some showy stops and perform trick of flicking up ball with heels.
New outside assistance. One cannot be named for legal reasons, but also 16-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman Wasi ud-din and 19-year-old Saifullah, genuinely fast bowler and electric fieldsman. Both being developed at famous Rashid Latif academy in Karachi. Both (I think) could break into Pakistan international set-up, in which case look forward to boring listeners for years with account of match I played with them as unknowns.
They make big score (not recorded in our book, fortunately). Again sent in as sacrificial goat opener, in night leg of match under lights with white ball. Opposition captain asks me to wear helmet. Reluctantly agree, far prefer to rely on natural cowardice. In spite of several adjustments, the confounded thing rattles and clangs. Open with Wasi ud-din, who also asks me to avoid any run-outs. Agree to this, but then take ridiculous single. He says “Well run” (excessive good manners). Opening attack mixes pace with former Test slow left-armer (check name from photo of their scorebook). Cannot score off the latter at all. My public get impatient – 2 off 11 balls. Sally down pitch. Beaten in flight. Struck on pad, unfortunately back one. Our own umpire gives (justified) lbw. In spite of 60-plus from young Wasi ud-din, we finish second.
Wednesday Nov 12: Transfer to legendary Sind Club (see separate article Peccavimus, by Peter Oborne and self). Delayed by Karachi traffic jam, lorry shed bales of cotton. When back in motion, take count of numbers of people who can fit on single motor scooter (winner is family of six). Re-observe Karachi driving technique, vehicles dive for any space in road like batsman trying to beat fast throw. No time to sample delights of Sind Club before being hauled off to play their invitation XI in 20-over match in first-class National Bank Stadium. Huge (by our standards) playing area, regularly lose sight of ball despite see-red sunglasses sold to be at special Lord’s event by Marcus Trescothick. Substitutes Wasi ud-Din and Saifullah have no such difficulty and achieve sensational run-out. Relieved of opening duties, and not required to bowl or bat. Closest finish on tour, opposition almost implode in final over in which captain Oborne scores 22, but we are still second.
Agreeable post-mortem in Sind Club bar. (See Peccavimus). Fine piano in corner but it is a wreck. Sind Club asks us to add our signatures to those of famous visiting teams which adorn walls amidst remains of dead animals (including a tiger wounded beyond repair). Future imbibers will wonder: who were they?
Post-mortem interrupted by sudden summons to take part in live TV discussion on Wounded Tiger and tour. Drive off to distant studio with Arif Abbasi and Charles Alexander, fellow contributor to book. An hour of soft questions from eager young sports chat host, Emmad Hameed. AA answers pungently, Charles answers seriously and cogently and I attempt a few merry jests. I get a laugh from Emmad when I use my old line about “moving the ball both ways off the bat” but he cuts in too quickly and spoils several other punchlines. However, broadcast has many viewers and am stopped by fans next day. Although programme goes out live, no evidence on camera of embarrassing grimaces, teeth picking or other common errors.
Thursday Nov 13 Final match at historic Karachi Gymkhana ground, where Pakistan team took giant step to Test status by beating MCC in 1951. We bowl and field respectably (I almost bring off sensational catch, yes, diving again) but Gymkhana Veterans score monumental 290 off their 30 overs, despite excellent bowling from two spinners they lent to us. Try unsuccessfully to persuade opposition to turn match into declaration game so that we can go for the draw. Jim Bolton scores first 50 by a genuine Wounded Tiger, fine opening partnership with Euan Davidson. Another whirlwind 20+ from Peter Oborne but we are far behind asking rate. Banished to number 11, come in with five overs to score about 130. Opt for the non-existent draw. Some mild, humorous sledging. Survive with 5 and at least we are not all out. TV and newspapers present. Most popular subject for photographs is our soft toy wounded tiger mascot (little media tart). Several post-match speeches and formal awards.
Tour ends: played 6 lost 6. Climax is reception at home of Jamsheed Marker, now 91, legendary radio commentator (in English), the Brian Johnston of Pakistan cricket. (Also career diplomat, in Guiness Book of Records for number of ambassadorships held). He tells several amusing stories (retained for use in coming Companion volume). See large piano but hands are seized by Charles Alexander and am dragged away before able to play selections from Ricky Rubato.
A few general conclusions.
1) All Pakistan oppositions, including veterans, very powerful but extraordinarily polite. Terrific cordial atmosphere in every match. No umpiring controversies (we had our own genial and experienced umpire, Ian Vaughan-Arbuckle, in Karachi leg).
2) All hosts – and local media – over the moon to be visited by any English team after being shunned by international visitors since terrible 2009 attack on Sri Lanka team. Any good performance or even effort by us is extravagantly applauded.
3) Excellent pitches, although generally slow. Contrary to myth, it is entirely possible to dive on Pakistani outfields.
4) November temperatures perfect for me in Lahore (peaking around 86 in proper Fahrenheit) but a little warm in Karachi (reaching 90s and officially 105 on eventual departure).
5) No safety worries except in crossing street.
6) In spite of official prohibition, drink readily available in private houses or clubs.
7) It is not only possible but extremely pleasurable for English teams to play cricket in Pakistan.
Peccavimus (We Have Stayed In The Sind Club)
Impressions of a first visit by Peter Oborne and Richard Heller (November 2012)
For a first-time visitor, the Sind Club is hard to believe. Set within a sprawling, noisy turbulent city, its order, its elegance, its history make the Club feel like a fantasy kingdom.
As devotees of P G Wodehouse, we sustained the fantasy by populating the Club with his characters.
Lord Emsworth (in his early days, before Wodehouse gave him the Empress of Blandings) is pottering happily amongst the flowers which have won the Club so many prizes. His raffish brother, the Hon Galahad Threepwood, is enjoying a few frames with his chum the Earl of Ickenham, in the cathedral-like Billiard Room. Bertie Wooster’s “good” Aunt Dahlia is distraught: her master chef Anatole has defected to the Club’s kitchens. One beneficiary is Lord Emsworth’s food-loving enemy, Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, filling his plate at the lavish lunchtime buffet in the main dining room. Sir Gregory then totters to the hammam to steam away his excesses and ask the expert masseur to knead him back into some sort of shape.
Meanwhile, Mike and Psmith are enjoying the outdoor cricket net, where Mike needs all his talent to resist the fierce turn and bounce from Umar the resident bowler. If he chooses to join Mr Mulliner and the Oldest Member in the Main Bar he can inspect the signatures of all the other great cricketers to have passed through the club on tour. Bertie Wooster and Bingo Little are enjoying a vigorous game of squash. Other Drones are biffing the ball around the tennis courts. Gussie Fink-Nottle is looking in vain for newts in the giant outdoor pool, whose silky water feels as though it has been ironed before use.
Bertie’s room may well be bigger than his London quarters in Brinkley Court. Even the exacting Jeeves will be satisfied with its furnishings and facilities. And where is Jeeves? We think he might be thoroughly at home with the staff. Jeeves does a lot of shimmering and so do they. He endeavours constantly to give satisfaction, and so, indeed, do they.
The Wodehouse game is an enjoyable fantasy, but it is just that – fantasy. For although much of the Club retains much of the décor and the extraordinary artefacts of its days in the British Raj, it has become a Pakistani institution. It has chosen its legacy: keeping what is worth remembering, discarding the rest into history’s well-filled dustbin.
The Club is indeed stuffed with memories (literally so, in the case of all the preserved animals and the old weighing chair in the Main Bar, in which one former member set an enduring record of 317 Imperial pounds). There is a fine published history of its creation and transformation in the modern era, full of distinguished visitors. One is the great traveller, Robert Byron in 1929, installed in “this temple of Sahibdom in a suite of three rooms with bath.” He is forced to take his meals in his room because of his unforgiveable crime of not packing a dinner jacket.
The past comes most alive in tiny details. Who, for example, was Mr Wood, immortalized in the Billiard Room, winner of the challenge cup in 1931 with an astonishing 675 points? Then there’s the special dinner menu for 1933, featuring “Gateau St Honoré, Baked Custard to be passed separately to His Excellency.” Who was this Excellency and was he very particular about his custard?
The Club can take pride and pleasure from its history because it has created a very distinctive environment and ambience for its present-day members (and its delighted visitors.) We have experienced here a quality of good manners which seems especially important in Pakistani social life – a genuine concern for other people. It seems to start young. We have noticed many children around the club, but we haven’t noticed the whining, arguing, and general attention-seeking that all too frequently announce children in England or the United States. When people wish you a nice day in this Club, they actually want you to have one. If they help you it is because they want to help you, not to see themselves helping you.
We have noticed very few insects in the Sind Club, but if there are any we now feel certain that they would ask permission before biting us.
We have come to Karachi and the Club to write a history book. We would each like to come back to the Club to write a novel. Not one of those short, slight modern novels but a thick, long, Dickensian one.
YP Remembering Richard Nixon
published in the Yorkshire Post 9 August 2014
Like almost everyone of my generation, I remember where I was when John F Kennedy was killed.
But I can also remember where, forty years ago [today – 9 August 1974], I heard Richard M Nixon resign the Presidency of the United States. I was sharing a small flat in London and stayed up until 2am to make certain it would happen.
I was ready to believe anything against Richard Nixon. I was raised in a Leftwing American household, forced to leave the United States during the McCarthy era. I learnt to hate and fear Nixon as a McCarthyite Redbaiter, corrupt and criminal and a conservative class warrior for America’s powerful élites. (In reality, links to Joe McCarthy and organized crime, and membership of a rich élite were far more characteristic of those wonderful Kennedys).
He re-invented himself as “the new Nixon” during the 1968 election, but his Presidency still made him a demon to liberals and the Left. His Vice-President, Spiro T Agnew, was a stupid, strident Right-winger: fortunately, his corruption was exposed before Nixon’s fall, so that the dim but well-intentioned Gerald Ford inherited the Presidency.
Nixon cut back the Johnson administration’s anti-poverty programmes (in fairness, these were often wasteful). With his hardline Attorney General, John Mitchell, he tried to halt the pace of civil rights and school desegregation. His “Southern strategy” of courting white supremacist voters led him to nominate two reactionary Southern judges to the Supreme Court: one was rejected for previous malfeasance, the other for sheer inadequacy.
Above all, having promised a “secret plan” to end the Vietnam war, Nixon escalated the war and extended it to Cambodia, provoking a wave of demonstrations and the deaths of protestors at Kent State University, Ohio and Jackson State University, Mississippi. The escalation achieved nothing militarily. Cambodia was devastated and ultimately delivered to the murderous Pol Pot regime. American casualties continued to rise: Nixon’s first year in office saw one quarter of the 56,000 American deaths in Vietnam. When Nixon realized that “the silent majority” of American voters had turned against the war he ordered Henry Kissinger to negotiate in earnest, but also ordered the heaviest bombing of North Vietnam. He and Kissinger claimed that the escalation enabled the United States to negotiate an honourable end to the war from a position of strength. But the North Vietnamese secured American withdrawal without modifying their ambition to conquer the whole of Vietnam, which they achieved after Nixon’s fall amid scenes of American ignominy.
Nixon’s Left critics received new ammunition from the overthrow, assisted by the CIA, of the Marxist President Allende and the administration’s support for his successors, a repressive military junta which tortured and murdered opponents, including American citizens.
However, Nixon did some important things which confounded his stereotype. Domestically, his administration introduced a wave of major environmental legislation, promoted health and safety for workers and raised the minimum wage, ended the draft and reformed campaign finance (with some irony, given the Watergate revelations about his own re-election methods). His foreign policy embraced détente with the Soviet Union and the first SALT agreement, and, most dramatically, the opening to Communist China.
On the economy, Nixon (leader of the supposedly free-market party) operated a fiercely interventionist policy of price and wage controls. In 1971 Nixon echoed Franklin Roosevelt by devaluing the dollar and wrecking the Bretton Woods system which managed international currency movements. Bretton Woods would almost certainly have been doomed by the oil price shock the following year, but the world economy has never found a replacement: now nations either submit their currencies to volatile global markets or imprisoning them in artificial arrangements such as the euro.
Amid these great events, it seems strange that Nixon was ruined by such a petty matter as the Watergate scandals. They produced much melodrama but no casualties or suffering: ultimately, the only victims were the perpetrators. All of them, including Nixon, were undone by incompetence as much as villainy.
Nixon was probably the most charmless man to become President and this explains the impact of Watergate. It is instructive to compare him with Bill Clinton, who survived impeachment proceedings largely through his supernatural empathy with the American people. Ronald Reagan faced more serious charges than Nixon in the Iran-Contra affair (clandestine lawbreaking to assist a terrorist group) but Reagan was genuinely loved and was virtually unscathed.
Nixon was never loved, but he had enjoyed respect. Watergate destroyed this, and the image of him from the tapes overtook that of a competent, decisive chief executive, which he might have gained from his genuine achievements. Day after day, Americans saw evidence of a person unfit to be President: paranoid and profane (Nixon suffered more from the repeated euphemism “expletive deleted” than from citation of his actual language), with a third-rate entourage, and above all, total contempt for legality and truth and total refusal to take responsibility for his actions.
Characteristically, when he finally resigned he made no admission of error or failure. Instead, he told Americans that “I no longer have a strong enough political base in Congress.” He entered office as a dark genius and left it as a lying oaf.
Preamble to a British constitution: can anyone do better?
Whereas, it is a great and manifold blessing to a nation to possess a constitution respected and revered by its citizens, and
Whereas, this United Kingdom has no single written constitution but rather a constitutional settlement scattered and diffused among many statutes and other instruments and in parts not even written at all but having expression only through custom and convention, and
Whereas, our citizens have no ready and convenient means to view and examine this settlement and bring it to memory,
Now, we the people of the United Kingdom have created this Constitution as an expression of our nation, our democracy and as the framework of our government whose just powers derive only from our consent.
We, through the agency of our representatives in Parliament assembled, have devised and agreed this constitution to unite in one place for all to see the principles and rules by which our realm is and ought to be governed, so that our constitution may be better known, upheld and protected by all its citizens.
Through this constitution our nation:
affirms that all its people are created equal and entitled to justice, liberty and opportunity under law in our United Kingdom,
embeds and entrenches the rule of law throughout its territory,
defines the institutions of government and the inherent rights of all its citizens, and secures them from the tyranny or caprice of those in power over them,
provides for its citizens to make decisions in government at the appropriate level which is closest to them,
enables the means by which the exercise of any power or authority within the nation can be judged lawful and legitimate or otherwise and can be made accountable to all its citizens;
creates throughout its territory the conditions which insure domestic tranquillity, promote the general welfare, advance culture, learning and the use and expression of every individual talent, and allow the establishment and expansion of lawful commerce of every kind, and
makes the rights and blessings attendant on our citizenship better known and understood that they may be more vigorously defended and promoted both by ourselves now and forever.
YP Cameron must end farce over Iraq war inquiry
Published in the Yorkshire Post 23 June 2014
As the third Iraq war rages, the British people have been denied the right to read the report of the Chilcot inquiry on the second, eleven years ago.
The delay has been caused by Whitehall manoeuvring and government hypocrisy. It is time for Parliament to bring the report to light.
Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry team reached their conclusions long ago, perhaps as far back as 2010. The delay is all about Whitehall resistance to publication of key passages in their reasoning, especially their wish to cite Cabinet proceedings and worse still, 25 Notes from Tony Blair to George Bush and records of over 130 conversations between them.
Sir John entered painstaking negotiations about this material over many months. Meanwhile, the government pretended that it was powerless to intervene and David Cameron even had the nerve to suggest that he was frustrated by the delay.
Sir John and his team should never have negotiated with Whitehall, because they were never responsible for publishing their report. Their task was simply to deliver it to the Prime Minister of the day. If anyone had to worry about the subsequent publication of sensitive material it was David Cameron.
Some weeks ago Sir John finally reached a deal with Whitehall over the Bush-Blair Notes and exchanges. Unfortunately, it offers huge scope for further delay or even total impasse.
Sir John agreed that the inquiry will consider “gists and quotes” of these exchanges, and decide whether each one is sufficient to explain their conclusions.
These “gists and quotes” have been prepared by Whitehall officials with fundamentally different priorities. The inquiry wants the fullest possible citations, to achieve clarity. Whitehall wants citations compressed to achieve the maximum possible obscurity, particularly over anything said or done by President Bush.
As a professional “gister” for over 40 years, I would balk at the task of summarizing an exchange between A and B which suppressed B’s contribution. This task would become impossible if A’s contributions consisted primarily of “Yes… Definitely… With you all the way,” as I strongly suspect happened in most of the Blair-Bush conversations.
If the Chilcot inquiry reject any particular “gist or quote” they have to throw it back to the anonymous officials for “re-gisting” until they are satisfied.
But then all of those “gists and quotes” will have to be submitted to Tony Blair, and possibly other people, as part of the so-called Maxwellization process, after the old rogue, to establish a right of rebuttal for anyone facing criticism in a public inquiry. Blair and other “Maxwellees” will have the right to challenge any “gist” as an inadequate account of the full material in question, just as they would as defendants in a court of law. Moreover, they might call in aid other sensitive material, which the “gisters” would have to summarize and present to the Chilcot inquiry.
This procedural ping-pong is nonsensical and an insult to all the victims of Iraq. Cameron should take responsibility for ending it.
He should demand from the Chilcot inquiry their unexpurgated report, with their full conclusions and all the supporting evidence they wished to quote. This version, not a “gisted” one, should then be used for Maxwellization. Blair and any others should be given a short time for their responses. Cameron should then present these to the inquiry and invite them to correct any issue of fact which had emerged. They should address their conclusions only if they had been affected by such a correction.
Cameron should then do his duty of presenting the report to Parliament in a publishable form.
This should allow the British people to see all of the inquiry’s conclusions, all the rebuttals, and all the sources concerned. Cameron – as head of government – would decide whether any particular source could be quoted as the inquiry (or any rebutter) intended. If he ruled against that, in the wider national interest, the report could cite any agreed “gist.” If no such gist existed, the report should make a bare reference, for example “the telephone conversation at 2000 GMT on 31 June 2002 between the Prime Minister and the President.”
Some readers might be frustrated to be denied quotations from key evidence. But the vast majority would gain the satisfaction of reading the inquiry’s conclusions – at last – and knowing what evidence they had studied. A report in this form would actually carry more conviction than one in which the crucial evidence had been deliberately Bowdlerized.
Parliament should set a timetable for publication of the Chilcot report. The rest of this year seems quite long enough. If Cameron fails to meet this, Parliament should use its powers to subpoena the unexpurgated report and all the rebuttals – and take charge of publication itself.
This would be a worthwhile task for a fag-end Parliament. It might help to convince voters that their Parliament is worth voting for.
Evening Standard Letter on Blair and Iraq 19 June 2014
If Tony Blair really cared about Iraq he would realize that he personally is an obstacle to public acceptance of the policies he recommends now. He will remain so until he is willing to acknowledge error and failure in his conduct of the Iraq war and occupation. This will be hard for him, but the needs of the Iraqi people, our country and the world should prevail over his ego.
Luke Upward’s Great Lies Of Modern Times (some additions)
1) Your call is important to us
2) Easy to assemble
3) Serves 2
4) Fun for all the family
5) You can’t miss it
6) I didn’t get your email for some reason, could you send it again?
7) Of course it’s not too much trouble
eight*) I’d love to come but it depends when the engineer has finished [add optional account of long search and wait for engineer, appointments rarer than transits of Venus]
9) You must give me the recipe
10) Sorry, the bank transfer must have failed [replaces former cheque-is-in-the-post]
11) Stand still and it won’t attack you
12) [From speaker] I will not keep you long
13) Don’t worry, it always makes that noise
14) You’ll love it once you’re in [whether in relation to swimming pool or marketing scheme or European Union]
15) Sorry I couldn’t get back earlier – I’ve been snowed under
16) Awardwinning/recordbreaking/unforgettable [especially if applied to musical comedy]
17) GSOH
18) To be perfectly honest with you…
*Why does numeral 8 show up as an idiotic smiley face?
YP Miliband Mustn’t Be Caught On The Hop Again By Mr Toad
published in the Yorkshire Post 28 May 2014
In 1983, after a calamitous campaign, Labour took a pounding from Margaret Thatcher. Labour’s defeat by UKIP in the European elections was worse – not only bitter but shameful.
Margaret Thatcher was a political giant. Nigel Farage is a minor figure, successfully reinvented as a genial bloke who dresses like Mr Toad and enjoys a pint and a fag.
In 1983, Labour faced a serious challenger as the main opposition to the Conservative government. But in 2010 when the Liberal Democrats joined the coalition Labour regained its monopoly as the only alternative government for the United Kingdom. When Ed Miliband became its surprise leader, he had a unique chance to reinvent Labour as the sole opposition.
Without trashing the record of the governments he had served, he could have shown how his would be something different and better. He had a clear field to propose new ideas for reforming the banks and financial markets, for remodelling the tax and welfare system, for finding new sources of jobs and growth, for education, health and provision for the elderly, for EU reform and a host of other major issues.
Above all, he could have ended Labour’s identification with a self-seeking, self-rewarding political class, which never accepts responsibility for error and failure and their impact on people in the real world outside their political bubble.
None of these things have happened – especially the last. Labour paid the price in the elections. It is worth recalling that Labour beat UKIP in the Euro-elections of 2009 – fought under an unpopular leader of an incumbent government amidst a ruined economy. It edged ahead of UKIP in Yorkshire and the Humber. In 2014, in far better circumstances, Labour was overtaken there by UKIP. Labour put on 150,000 votes, compared to 2009, but UKIP found another 190,000 – even beating Labour in Ed Miliband’s base in Doncaster.
Inevitably, critics have blamed Labour’s leader for its performance, citing polling and personal evidence that he is a liability. He was certainly a klutz on the campaign trail – losing a contest with a bacon sandwich, forgetting the name of his party’s local candidate on local radio, leading a cost-of-living campaign and not knowing the cost of living himself.
Other critics focus on more serious mistakes. Having commissioned a thoroughgoing policy review, Ed Miliband has allowed it to drift deep into an election year. In consequence, Labour will suffer from stories about rows and splits over key recommendations, and exposure of any silly ideas, without the time to bed down ideas which might be sensible and popular.
Ed Miliband gave a free gift to UKIP on the EU referendum – not simply by opposing it but in his reasons. He effectively told the British people that a referendum would be bad for Big Business because they could not be trusted to vote the right way. Labour’s commitment to the EU might have been inevitable, but it handed Farage his other big issue – immigration – on a plate.
It is easy to blame Ed Miliband for his party’s failures, but Labour could still benefit from showcasing his personal honesty and intellect. None of his Shadow Cabinet have offered any evidence that they would do better, and several should be replaced. Douglas Alexander was a hapless campaign supremo, despite expensive advice from David Axelrod, Labour’s part-time American guru. Alexander’s campaign produced two abysmal election broadcasts, and left Labour candidates completely unprepared to counter UKIP. Given extra time for his other job he might try to convince voters that Labour has a foreign policy.
The acrimonious apparatchik Michael Dugher wants to replace him – another horse from Caligula’s stable. Sadiq Khan, the shadow London minister, would be a much better fulltime campaign chief. He was the spearhead of a notably-better Labour performance in London, without which Labour would have come third in the European elections. The performance may owe little to Mr Khan, because London may now be a distinct political country, but he deserves his chance to repeat it.
More important, Labour needs a new Shadow Chancellor. Ed Balls could not win the economic argument for Labour when nothing was going right for the government. He is not the man to convince voters to drop the government as they emerge from pain into upturn. He and Labour are still trapped in his past, as the creator of a failed “light touch” system of financial regulation, as part of an economic team which made complacency Britain’s biggest growth industry and then presided over the crash. He should return to his old brief at education in place of the lightweight Tristram Hunt. If he thinks that giving Britain’s children a future is not a big enough job for him he can skulk on the backbenches.
These changes would be helpful to Labour – as would a mass cull of Ed Miliband’s personal staff and entourage. But they are no substitute for completing the big tasks which the party faced when he took over. If he could not win voters back when he had the field to himself it will be even harder now that he must compete with a noisy, popular Mr Toad.
A TALE OF TEN WICKETS (more)
There were many things which Arthur Fraser used to hate about his job, but the worst of them was the lift.
He worked in a tall building called Excelsior House. Both the building and its lifts were shared between two important enterprises.
Floors 1 to 14 inclusive belonged to Megalopolitan Television. Floors 15 to 24 inclusive belonged to Her Majesty The Queen, who had graciously assigned them to her Department of Internal Revenue and Expenditure (DIRE).
It was easy to distinguish the different users of the lifts. Mega-TV employees wore casual clothes but emphatic fragrances. Their men disdained jackets and ties in favour of garish open-neck shirts. They greeted each other in the lift like long-lost brothers and sisters, and complimented each other in exotic language. One especially florid man had a regular set of buzzwords: ‘very heavy … very macho… very phallic…’
The DIRE people wore dark clothes. The men had white shirts, ties and jackets at all hours of the day. They smelt of government-issue soap. DIRE people were silent in the lift until safely past the fourteenth floor, when observations about trains or the weather were permissible.
Arthur was a minor official of DIRE. His boss was an incompetent martinet, who had blocked his bids for transfer or promotion. His work was routine, his prospects negligible. Day after day he travelled up in the lift. He studied every word and gesture of the Mega-TV people. The florid man’s catch-phrase lodged in his brain: ‘very heavy … very macho… very phallic.’ It became his mantra too, his hope of reincarnation in another life-form.
Another passage from my reprinted first cricket novel A TALE OF TEN WICKETS (ISBN 0-9523419-0-5) The Canterbury Tales of village cricket
“This delightful tome resonates with a barely concealed English passion for the sport of flannelled fools. He manages to cram the outlines of ten novels into a paperback about one village game.” Peter McKay, The Daily Mail
“Amateurs of all ages will feel at home in the bucolic atmosphere on pitch and in pavilion.” Duff Hart-Davis, The Mail On Sunday
“Some of the stories are beauties, vignettes of triumph and disaster in which the characters are illuminated with real sharpness.” Max Davidson, The Daily Telegraph
And in case you missed him earlier, here is my star fast bowler (on loan from Scott Fitzgerald).
It had always seemed unjust to Pat Hobby that his only lasting gift was for playing cricket. In fifteen years he had lost twenty-three writing jobs, four houses, two wives and many weekends, but he had never lost his outswinger. Pat Hobby could no longer create stories, or scenes, or characters, or dialogue. But the hands that froze over a typewriter could still put the devil into a cricket ball, to the great benefit of the Frenetic Cricket Club.
A TALE OF TEN WICKETS is reprinted!
“It had always seemed unjust to Pat Hobby that his only lasting gift was for playing cricket. In fifteen years he had lost twenty-three writing jobs, four houses, two wives and many weekends, but he had never lost his outswinger. Pat Hobby could no longer create stories, or scenes, or characters, or dialogue. But the hands that froze over a typewriter could still put the devil into a cricket ball, to the great benefit of the Frenetic Cricket Club.”
From A TALE OF TEN WICKETS (ISBN 0-9523419-0-5), my first cricket novel, reprinted by popular
demand. Available from bookshops, Amazon, and (signed) from me.
