We met at the Mariinsky Theatre to see an opera conducted by Valery Gergiev. Putin had chosen the opera carefully: War and Peace War and Peace by Prokofiev, written as a morale booster for Russian nationalism and caricaturing Napoleon as. .h.i.tler. It was an extraordinary occasion and all of Russian top society was there. One thing happened which I often recalled to myself in future years. Vladimir and I walked through the beautiful corridors of the magnificent nineteenth-century building. In a similar situation in the UK, I would have been greeting people, shaking hands, engaging and being engaged; with Vladimir I noticed people fell back as he approached, not in fear or anything; but a little in awe and with reverence. It was a tsar-like moment and I thought: Hmm, their politics really isn"t like ours at all. by Prokofiev, written as a morale booster for Russian nationalism and caricaturing Napoleon as. .h.i.tler. It was an extraordinary occasion and all of Russian top society was there. One thing happened which I often recalled to myself in future years. Vladimir and I walked through the beautiful corridors of the magnificent nineteenth-century building. In a similar situation in the UK, I would have been greeting people, shaking hands, engaging and being engaged; with Vladimir I noticed people fell back as he approached, not in fear or anything; but a little in awe and with reverence. It was a tsar-like moment and I thought: Hmm, their politics really isn"t like ours at all.
Vladimir later came to believe that the Americans did not give him his due place. Worse, he saw them as circling Russia with Western-supporting "democracies" who were going to be hostile to Russian interests.
In vain, I tried to get him to see that actually we supported those countries in their wish for democracy, not because we saw them as a strategic bulwark, enfeebling or encircling Russia, but because we genuinely believed that if they wanted to have the same freedom as us, we should allow and encourage it. I even proposed (and got accepted at NATO) a new arrangement for cooperation with Russia, which gave them a far greater involvement in NATO decision-making.
But in time, my efforts failed. Iraq; National Missile Defence which, in a sense understandably, they saw as aimed at them; the weakness, as they saw it, of the American efforts to construct a proper partnership; and most of all, the Western belief that under Putin"s leadership Russia began to exhibit undemocratic and tsarist/KGB tendencies all of this conspired to put him in a position where he believed it was better for Russia to be "independent" (i.e. difficult) and to pursue a foreign policy of a very nationalist kind.
However, I never lost that initial feeling for him or the thought that had circ.u.mstances transpired or conspired differently, the relationship could have prospered. And that"s how politics is.
Another reason for the difficulty in my relationship with Vladimir was that I think he found my approach to foreign policy intervention at best odd and at worst dangerous. To him, major powers should work out their interests in a fairly traditional, hard-headed way and implement them. Talking of moral causes was a serious mistake. It destabilised when stability was key. It started a row about rights and wrongs, which just got in the way of necessary power-brokering.
I"m afraid, however, Kosovo had not diminished my appet.i.te for such intervention where I thought it essential to resolve a problem that needed resolution, and where a strong moral case could be made.
In Sierra Leone in early 2000, a further challenge presented itself. It is one of the least discussed episodes of my ten years as prime minister, but it"s one of the things of which I am most proud. However, the important thing is the lesson it can and should teach us.
The tale of Sierra Leone and I hope its future chapters are brighter is a metaphor for what happened to Africa. Fourah Bay College in Freetown has a link with Durham University, where my father taught. It used to be one of the top universities in Africa and as good as many European ones. In the 1960s, Dad would go out to teach in Freetown. At that time, Sierra Leone was a country freed from colonial rule, with a strong governing infrastructure and a GDP per head around that of Portugal.
Between then and the late 1990s, the country went on a downward spiral that was as tragic as it was entirely avoidable. By the time we came to power, the democratically elected government looked as if it would be toppled by a collection of gangsters, madmen and s.a.d.i.s.ts known as the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), and the country"s abundant natural resources particularly its diamonds were being systematically plundered. The people were caught in the middle.
When the government tried to insist that the future should be decided by an election, its supporters were subjected to a campaign of medieval brutality. When I visited after calm was restored, I drove through village after village. Every third or fourth person would have a part of their right arm missing. The RUF"s response to the demand for a vote had been to cut off the voting hand of the people literally.
Preceding our intervention was the usual round of negotiations, agreements, declarations and general attempts to find common ground between factions who had none. For two years, the diplomatic saga dragged on. A UN force was sent, but, as ever, was mightily constrained, both politically and logistically.
Britain, the former colonial power, had an especial interest. We contributed some observers and military advisers to the force, but it was plain the situation was going nowhere but downhill. Ceasefires came and went. In May 2000, it suddenly turned really ugly as the RUF renounced the latest ceasefire and went on the rampage.
President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, who was a kindly and decent man, had just come to see me to beg for help. When the RUF finally threatened to take over the whole country, there was a simple decision: did we leave it to the UN force, who had already shown that they couldn"t really contain the RUF, or did we decide to act ourselves?
As usual, Charles Guthrie was clear and unambiguous. He said: We have out there a force of a thousand or more men. We can send more. We can send a battleship. If you want us to sort out the RUF, let"s do it. The instructions were given.
The British had been defending the airport at Lungi. Their mission was expanded, and over a number of weeks they did indeed sort out the RUF. Their action gave the UN a chance to bolster its force. The RUF leader Foday Sankoh was arrested, and during the following months there was a build-up of the international presence, a collapse of the rebels and then over time a programme of comprehensive disarmament, with the former RUF soldiers being gradually absorbed back into Sierra Leone society. The country"s democracy was saved.
After that experience, I became ever more convinced that there had to be a proper, well-equipped standing force for Africa, preferably African in nature, with a mandate to intervene and be deployed in situations such as Sierra Leone. The problem in much of Africa is conflict. You can ship in enormous amounts of aid, but unless you deal with the root causes fights over resources and territory, weak or corrupt governance the aid is only ever going to be a sticking plaster and, as such, subject to being ripped off and the wounds reopened at any time. I advocated such a force, and with Kofi Annan pushing hard, the UN eventually agreed it. It"s still in the making today, though the capability has grown. Without addressing these gaping inadequacies in practical politics, all that development aid will salve our conscience but not save the countries most in need of salvation.
During the Kosovo conflict, I had the opportunity to address the Economic Club of Chicago. In that speech on 24 April 1999, I set out what I called a "Doctrine of the International Community", a rather grand t.i.tle for what was really a very simple notion: intervention to bring down a despotic dictatorial regime could be justified on grounds of the nature of that regime, not merely its immediate threat to our interests. It was an explicit rejection of the narrow view of national interest and set a policy of intervention in the context of the impact of globalisation.
It was such a break with the past that I was careful to hedge the doctrine with limitations, in case it was thought madly quixotic. Even so, it drew predictable criticism for making foreign policy a moral cause. Interestingly, in the light of later military campaigns, many on the Republican right took issue with it, seeing it as contaminating a proper and prudent regard for the only thing that matters: the American national interest. But, of course, my point was that this interest had to be more broadly defined in the new era.
I set out five major considerations when considering intervention.
First, are we sure of our case? War is an imperfect instrument for righting humanitarian distress; but armed force is sometimes the only means of dealing with dictators. Second, have we exhausted all diplomatic options? We should always give peace every chance, as we have in the case of Kosovo. Third, on the basis of a practical a.s.sessment of the situation, are there military operations we can sensibly and prudently undertake? Fourth, are we prepared for the long term? In the past we talked too much of exit strategies. But having made a commitment we cannot simply walk away once the fight is over; better to stay with moderate numbers of troops than return for repeat performances with large numbers. And finally, do we have national interests involved?
In retrospect, applying those tests to Iraq shows what a finely balanced case it was, and why I never thought those who disagreed were stupid or weak-minded.
But the doctrine itself comes down not only to a debate about foreign policy, but also to a judgement, and a judgement rather familiar across the board in politics: how best to bring about change, a.s.suming change is necessary or strongly desirable. Change can happen by evolution, and it can happen by revolution. This is true of the way a country proceeds towards freedom. Russia in 1917 is a case in point. It could have changed through Kerensky and in a step-by-step social democratic advance, but it happened in fact by Bolshevik revolution. It is true also of more mundane areas of politics: public services or the economy can be changed by gradual reform, or they can be changed sharply, as with the Thatcher revolution in industry in the 1980s.
But here is the point: if a system is malfunctioning, it does need to change, whether that change be gradual or abrupt.
In some cases of regimes that are oppressive and dictatorial, there is nonetheless a process of evolution that is discernible in the right direction. The reforms may be slow, but there is a direction and it is benign; or at least, it is not threatening.
In other cases, the regime"s very nature lies in its oppression. It has chosen to be what it is. It will not change, not by evolution, not by the exercise of its own will because that will is directed towards oppression and for a long time, at least, it will not change by the will of the people who, because they are oppressed, lack the means to overthrow the regime. Its malign nature will deepen.
Even with regimes like this, the answer cannot be always to intervene. They may pose no outside or external threat; or it may be easily contained diplomatically. It may as with Mugabe be simply politically impractical to intervene.
But where there is such a threat and intervention is practical, then a judgement has to be made. If change will not come by evolution, should it be done by revolution? Should those who have the military power to intervene contemplate doing so?
The dangers are evident. As I said earlier, such an att.i.tude can lead to rash adventures and to consequences worse than those of the oppression. That"s the case some would make on Iraq, to which we shall come later. But non-intervention also has its consequences, as again I said earlier. In each military campaign I engaged in, there was a history of non-intervention before the intervention. Milosevic had removed autonomy from Kosovo in 1989, and the tension and suffering had built for almost a decade. Bosnia was the epitome of the non-interventionist philosophy; and of its consequences. In Sierra Leone, through all sorts of cobbled-together compromises, non-intervention or mild intervention had held sway for several years. In other words, evolution had failed. The only thing that was going to work was solving the problem, not pacifying it. And of course in a different part of Africa, in the small state of Rwanda, the non-interventionists succeeded in holding back those who took the genocide as a call to arms.
No one can say the problems of the Balkans are now solved. Sierra Leone remains poor, as does too much of Africa. But the Balkans, which for a century or more was a byword for instability, today has at least the prospect of a better future. Croatia has opened accession negotiations with the EU, and Slovenia is a full member. Sierra Leone is a democracy. Its government has changed without bloodshed. Next door, Liberia is on the same agonising, difficult journey into the future, and its former leader who supported the RUF is awaiting trial.
When revolution comes through intervention, and when that intervention is based on a desire to bring freedom and democracy, the struggle will still be arduous; the setbacks will be legion; those who exclaim that it would all have been better if left well alone will have their day, and regularly; but I doubt history will make the same judgement. Even if brought about by the pain of war, at least the grip of oppression is broken after such a revolution. A proper evolution, however fraught, can begin.
This is a fascinating debate. At the special meeting of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council in New York in September 2000, it led to the adoption of the Brahimi Report, which laid out the plan to create a standing UN force for peacekeeping in Africa, a direct effect of the success of the Sierra Leone intervention. It also led to the UN adopting in 2005 the principle of the "Responsibility to Protect", the idea that states have a duty to safeguard their citizens from ma.s.s atrocities, and that the international community has a duty to intervene if a state fails in this responsibility.
But however much it fascinated me (and some others), it didn"t cut much ice with the British public.
Throughout 1999 and particularly around Kosovo, we were aware the government was losing support. Its focus my focus seemed to be on a faraway place; and there was plenty to do at home, not least in health, education and crime. And, indeed, we were trying to do it; but not unnaturally, the headlines were full of tanks, bombs and airplanes.
It was not all bad. We won the first Scottish Parliament elections, the first time in the twentieth century that the government polled ahead in the local elections. Not that I should call them "local" the entire thing was itself a revolution of sorts.
Attempts to devolve power to Scotland, Ireland and Wales had been made ever since the United Kingdom was formed, and time after time they failed. It was the same commitment to devolution, very roughly, that had engulfed and nearly destroyed the Liberal Party of the late nineteenth century, and in the 1970s it was on devolution (among other things) that the last Labour government had come unstuck, when the so-called West Lothian Question had dominated debate and defeated the devolution legislation.
The West Lothian Question was named after the Labour MP Tam Dalyell"s const.i.tuency, since he was the person raising it. The question itself was very simple: if by devolution you reserve certain issues such as health or education to a Scottish Parliament so that English MPs no longer have a say in them, how can it be right or logical that Scottish MPs can still vote on issues of English health or education? It was a perfectly sensible question, and an interesting example of a problem in politics to which there is no logical answer.
However, my answer to it was that, though not logical, a devolution arrangement was not as unfair as it seemed. The truth is English MPs dominate the Westminster Parliament, which pa.s.ses the Budget and makes the laws. In deciding the Budget allocation to the Scots, for example, English MPs could always outvote them. And, of course, const.i.tutionally, in theory whatever powers Westminster bestowed, it could usurp. So though the West Lothian Question was valid, the arrangement that gave rise to it was, in the context of balance and weight between England and Scotland within the Union, justified (or at least justifiable). Anyway, in so far as there was an answer, that was it!
I was never a pa.s.sionate devolutionist. It is a dangerous game to play. You can never be sure where nationalist sentiment ends and separatist sentiment begins. I supported the UK, distrusted nationalism as a concept, and looked at the history books and worried whether we could get it through. However, though not pa.s.sionate about it, I thought it inevitable. Just as the nation state was having to combine with others in pushing power upwards in multinational organisations to meet global challenges, so there would be inexorable pressure to devolve power downwards to where people felt greater connection.
We didn"t want Scotland to feel the choice was status quo or separation. And it was a central part of our programme for Scotland. The Scots were notoriously p.r.i.c.kly about the whole business.
I always thought it extraordinary: I was born in Scotland, my parents were raised there, we had lived there, I had been to school there, yet somehow and this is the problem with nationalist sentiment unleashed they (notice the "they") contrived to make me feel alien.
Language had to be used carefully. They were incredibly sensitive to the fear that the Scottish Parliament would turn out to be a local council (which it never was). The Scottish media were a PhD dissertation about chippiness all unto themselves. They could spot a slight that to the naked eye was invisible (because it was non-existent). Once I gave an interview on why the Parliament should have tax-raising powers, in which I said: "If even a parish council can, why shouldn"t the Scottish Parliament?" which led to the headline "BLAIR COMPARES PARLIAMENT TO PARISH COUNCIL", which even by their standards was quite some misinterpretation. Funnily enough, I quite liked them. They were hard to deal with, but it was sort of fun at the same time.
The best example of their chronic obsession with an English plot (or domination by "London", as it became) was over the 1997 manifesto proposal to have a referendum on whether there should be a Scottish Parliament. As the legislation to devolve trundled through Westminster, I knew the only way we could avoid the trap that previous governments had fallen into was to negate the possibility of the legislation being sabotaged by the House of Lords. Their Lordships weren"t in a great mood with us either, since they too were being subjected to reform in the shape of the removal of the hereditary peers. At that time, the Lords was essentially controlled by small "c" and large "C" Conservatives who by and large didn"t like devolution since it represented const.i.tutional change. I knew they would seize any opportunity to derail the measure unless it could be made somehow const.i.tutionally or politically improper for them to do so. And of course the West Lothian Question gave them, as it had in the 1960s and 70s, legitimate grounds on which to camp.
While Leader of the Opposition, and despite heavy misgivings from George Robertson, then Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, I devised the gambit of offering a referendum not after the legislation, but before it, so that people could take a decision on the principle first. The strategy was clear: to devolve after a hundred years of waiting. The tactic was obvious: get the people to say yes, then the Lords could not say no.
It produced the most contorted cries of outrage from a.s.sorted nationalists and hacks, convinced it was designed to scupper the whole thing. It was even called undemocratic. I had the most contrary conversations and interviews where I would be asked: Isn"t having a referendum vote just a way of denying Scotland its due and proper Parliament? I would say: Er, but the Scots are the ones voting. Ah, they would say, but suppose they vote no? Well, I would say, in that case I a.s.sume they don"t want one. And so on. Amazing.
In the event they voted yes; the House of Lords could only cavil at the periphery of the legislation, not attack its core; and devolution came about. I think it was the right thing to do. I hope it was.
In early December 1999, the Tory MP Shaun Woodward came to see me. He had been the star of the 1992 Tory campaign. He was clever, articulate, plainly someone who had joined the Tories because Labour were so crazy in the 1980s, was economically and socially liberal, abhorred the Tory prejudices around gay rights particularly, was also out of sorts with them over Europe in fact over their whole att.i.tude to the modern world and wanted to defect.
He approached Cherie first, and then he and I talked. I thought he was genuine. Naturally it would be a great coup, but I also thought he would make a great addition to our team. Getting him a seat would be tough (though in the end we did). Defecting can be an act of opportunism. It can also be an act of courage. In his case, I thought it was courage. Alastair handled it brilliantly, as ever, and it was announced just before Christmas.
It solidified our grip on the centre ground, and expressed, in a way speeches couldn"t, the open-door policy we had towards people who thought the country had to move on from Thatcherism but not go back to Old Labour. These were the people who were successful, or wanted to be, who were in favour of a compet.i.tive market economy and who were socially liberal and compa.s.sionate. It was a strain of thought that had little purchase on the media mind, which thought in very traditional left/right terms, but it had its const.i.tuency in the country.
However, I was well aware that while such people applauded the vision, the words and the direction, they would need to know the path was being followed with the necessary vitesse, and that the destination could be reached. For that ever to happen, we were going to have to be a lot more radical in our approach. We were successful politically, incredibly so; but politics is for a purpose, and the frustration both within me and around me was beginning to mount.
NINE.
FORCES OF CONSERVATISM.
The "forces of conservatism" speech at the party conference in September 1999 had marked a sharpening of the a.n.a.lysis and a hardening of the soul. Pushing to get out of me was the desire to be a leader who led and challenged all the way. To the outside world, not much had changed. Inside, I knew I was changing.
As we began to try to drive change in the public services, in welfare, in law and order, it became obvious that there were major small "c" conservative interests within the services that were hostile to change, essentially vast vested interests that were pretty unscrupulous about defending themselves on the spurious grounds of defending the public interest.
I began to reflect on change and progress, and how it occurred. I saw a pattern in which conventional thinking had a grip which, when loosened, unleashed a fairly serious backlash; and how then once change occurs and takes root, it in turn becomes the conventional wisdom. I applied it not just to reform but to progress in human rights, in women"s rights, in defeating racism and apartheid, to left as well as right. It was a good argument and a radical one, but it had a slight Year Zero feel to it, as though I was saying that there was nothing of merit prior to New Labour. So while the argument was right, the tone was a fraction misjudged and in politics, fractions multiply fast.
Of all the things that were completely obvious about the difference between Opposition and government, one thing came on us to my great and entirely unjustified surprise: the gap between the commitment and the execution. We would take a decision, announce it; feel that soon the consequences would be manifest, even if it took time for their fullest impact to be felt.
The two years of spending controls inherited from the Tories had ended. In the Budget of 1999 we had started to relax things. In the public borrowing requirement of November 1999 we had announced major money, but it was like turning on a tap and seeing only a trickle come out. We had proclaimed 1999 as the "year of delivery" a phrase that somewhat came back to haunt us. Truthfully there had been progress, but it was very incremental, not only because the money had not really started to flow, but also because, as the "forces of conservatism" speech had indicated, there was a structural problem that money alone couldn"t solve. Across the piece in schools, universities, the NHS, law and order and criminal justice we were still only tinkering, not transforming. The speech was actually self-critical as well as system-critical. As 1999 wore on and the year 2000 turned, I began to look at how we could propel the whole question of reform further and faster.
First, however, we had the occasion of the millennium itself. I will remember the entry into the twenty-first century chiefly for two things: the Dome and the millennium bug. One should never have been, and was; the other should have been, and wasn"t.
When I think back on the time, effort and panic preparations for the "Y2K", or whatever it was called in the jargon, I can"t think of more time wasted to less effect. The only comfort was that the whole world was convinced about it. Basically, if you recall, computers were not supposed to be able to handle the numerical transfer to the year 2000. People cursed the hubris that had led mankind to think a computer would be an infallible object of progress. Predictions were made of catastrophe, crisis meetings were held, and around the planet we braced ourselves for the calamity that never came. Margaret Beckett and I would have meetings about it, at the end of which we would both agree we hadn"t the foggiest idea what the experts were talking about. David Miliband tried to explain it once, and I honestly didn"t have a clue what he was talking about and didn"t ask him to explain it again.
David had never quite recovered from a meeting I had had as Leader of the Opposition with Bill Gates, then in his heyday as the computer maestro transforming our times. David was smart and modern on technology. I was non compos mentis on the subject, being a genuine technophobe. He tried to tutor me before the meeting, alarmed that I would behave in a way inconsistent with the New Labour "we are at the cutting edge of the technological revolution" mantra.
I didn"t disappoint his expectations. I got all my terminology muddled up and, to the horror of David and the young "beautiful people" in the office, asked Bill how his mainframe was or something like that, a question that produced consternation mixed with giggling from the staff and a curious gulping sound from Bill. I had heard the term "mainframe" somewhere or other and thought I would astonish my audience by showing off my knowledge. I merely astonished them.
Anyway, the Y2K crisis came and went with no one in the end really noticing. The only good thing was that I had never agreed to spend much money on it. That"s the funny thing about decisions as prime minister: some are about doing things, but equally important are those about not not doing things. They all come thick and fast, and sometimes you don"t recognise them as decisions. They tend to be the things you say "no" to. doing things. They all come thick and fast, and sometimes you don"t recognise them as decisions. They tend to be the things you say "no" to.
Unfortunately, one thing we had said "yes" to was continuing with the Dome. I think as bad decisions go, it wasn"t a frightful one. Part of the problem and I really don"t mean this as an excuse is that we inherited the decision, and by the time we took office around 100 million had been committed, so cancellation costs would have been significant.
Actually, the original idea wasn"t bad either. Michael Heseltine had had it, and like a lot of his ideas it was big and bold and bra.s.sy. The concept was similar to that of the Crystal Palace Exhibition of Prince Albert, and the London Exhibition which John Prescott remembered of the Coronation year. We would put on a great British exhibition and situate it on the reclaimed swampland around the Greenwich gasworks. The trouble was that it was never wholly clear what would go in the exhibition, and the futuristic theme we wanted was fine at the broad-brush level, but elusive in the detail. So it sort of fell between multiple stools: future, technology, play, science, entertainment. It was a kind of jack of all trades and master of none.
That said, it wasn"t dreadful. It just wasn"t brilliant. The Dome team headed by Jenni Page worked like crazy and the whole thing was, in a sense, a miracle, given the scale of ambition. Six million people came to it, and many of them enjoyed it. We all became increasingly defensive about it, until we got to the stage me, Peter Mandelson and Charlie Falconer especially where if it had consisted of a man slapping everyone around the face with a wet fish, we would have stoutly held it to be a work of genius.
The simple points were that in this day and age, it wasn"t really a suitable project for government, and it never quite struck a note sufficiently attuned to the millennium. If we hadn"t inherited it, we would probably never have embarked on it. As David Yelland, the then editor of the Sun Sun told us, a brilliant new hospital would have been a better government priority. told us, a brilliant new hospital would have been a better government priority.
To be fair, Gordon was always against it, but I thought the pain of cancelling too great, and in any event, considered it worth a go. At the Cabinet which gave the green light, opinion was pretty evenly divided. John Prescott swung the day. I had had to leave early. He came into the chair and in a swashbuckling JP sort of way, rammed it through, mostly because he knew I wanted it and a little because he thought the idea had flair. Which it did. It just lacked sense.
The Dome itself was superb, designed by Richard Rogers, and of course we look at it now as a city landmark, instantly recognisable and giving the whole of south-east London a lift. In addition, of course, we reclaimed the land, built thousands of homes, a health centre and a school. It is also now the best entertainment venue for rock and pop in the country, possibly in Europe.
While it was in retrospect a mistake, the hysterical trashing of the whole project was never justifiable. However, it was explicable. The night of 31 December 1999 I shall never forget. I have always been awful about "great" days and anniversaries I shouldn"t be like this but I am. I never "got" birthdays except for the giving and receiving of presents. Christmas Day was and is always a wonderful family time, but somehow I"m always relieved when it"s over.
I was on duty and working the night of 31 December, and yes, OK, a millennium is a big deal, but as I feel most New Year"s Eves I could quite happily have gone to bed early, had a good night"s rest, and woken up the next day refreshed and able to contemplate at leisure the fact that another year had gone.
Anyway, you get the point: it"s not really my thing. So I looked forward to the evening of the turn of a new millennium with all the fervour of a visit to the dentist. Actually, I would have preferred a visit to the dentist. As it turned out, it would have been less painful, quieter and certainly less stressful.
First off, I had to go and start the Millennium Wheel, with an attendant firework display and great spiralling Catherine wheel of some description. We left Downing Street on foot, with me feeling an inchoate and gathering sense of dread. At times like these, Cherie would be heroic and perfect as a foil: she was or at least put on a great act of being thrilled by the whole prospect.
As we moved among the crowds in Whitehall and made our way to the Embankment, people were incredibly friendly and celebratory and my mood temporarily lightened. Somehow we got to the point near Hungerford Bridge where Bob Ayling, the chief executive of British Airways, was waiting for me to start it all off. Bob had taken over running the millennium celebrations and had done a great job under h.e.l.lish pressure.
"What happens when I start it off, Bob?" I said above the din.
"Well," he said, "not much since it"s not actually quite ready." He was unflappable. I liked that. Because I was definitely flapping. Bob turned his attention to the fireworks. "What"ll happen is that when you press the b.u.t.ton, they"ll go off right down the Thames."
Right, I thought. I got to the little podium; there were cheering crowds; I think I made a little speech emphasis on the "little" of a generally inane nature; and then pressed the b.u.t.ton.
A few desultory fireworks sprang to life, but by a cruel stroke which afflicted all our millennium celebrations, they failed to go off in quite the spectacular fashion envisaged. Indeed, as fireworks go, I had attended somewhat livelier events at Highbury Fields in Islington on Guy Fawkes Night.
And, of course, the Millennium Wheel was not yet working. "I don"t think that really matters for tonight," Bob said cheerfully.
"It does if it"s called the Millennium Wheel," I said sourly, the dread returning.
But there was no time to sulk. We had the Dome Party with the Queen to look forward to.
We were due to get there on the new Jubilee Line extension. The Tube was itself part of the development for the celebrations, and new stations were being opened. Again, a great idea; again, as the new year approached, it was a source of continual fretting. We had contractors" disputes, union disputes and political disputes. The problem was that everyone knew they had us over a barrel the deadline couldn"t exactly be moved, and without the extension, we couldn"t get people down to the Dome. We had left it tight. I had promised all manner of torture to my staff and ministers responsible. And I didn"t like the "Fingers crossed, Prime Minister" gallows humour emanating from the London Underground management. It was a ma.s.sive undertaking to get it finished, and John Prescott performed minor miracles bludgeoning people.
But millennium night was the first time it would be running. The initial nerve-racking moment came when we got to the train: would it work? Would the doors open? Would it just grind to a halt?
Anyway: it did work. It let us in and let us out, and so we got into the Dome, which was thronging; except that it wasn"t quite. There didn"t appear to be hordes of people. A lot, yes. Packed to the rafters, ready to party, no. "Where is everyone?" I asked our guide from the Dome.
"I think the connecting train from Stratford station has broken down. The station is effectively shut."
The room swayed. "What?" The Stratford station, vital to transport people to the Dome, had some wretched electrical fault and was malfunctioning. I thought of the public waiting there, the panic rising. "I"ve got to see Charlie," I said.
When Peter Mandelson had resigned, Charlie Falconer had taken over as the minister responsible. Charlie took more abuse over the Dome than it is possible now to imagine. He was wondrous throughout. Every time I saw him after yet another mauling complete with barbs about his weight, looks, character and manner of speaking I would say to him, "How are you, Charlie?" and really mean it. He would always reply that he was loving the job and was so grateful to me for the chance of doing it, all without any apparent hint of irony. I found it awesome. His performance over the Dome was an amazing feat of self-immolation.
I found him upstairs at the VIP reception. "Charlie," I said, "what the h.e.l.l"s going on at Stratford?" He explained the breakdown. "Oh Jesus, Charlie, how many people are waiting there?"
"A few thousand, I"m afraid. Sorry."
I looked at him melancholically. "What on earth will we say when the media find out?"
"Um, I"m afraid they will have found out already since the editors are all there waiting."
I fear I did grab him by the lapels at this point. And I adore Charlie.
"What? What? What the h.e.l.l are the media doing there? You didn"t, no, please, please, dear G.o.d, please tell me you didn"t have the media coming here by Tube from Stratford, just like ordinary members of the public."
"Well, we thought it would be more democratic that way."
"Democratic? What fool thought that? They"re the media, for Christ"s sake. They write about the people. They don"t want to be treated like them."
"Well, what did you want us to do," Charlie said, feeling he should be fighting his corner a little, "get them all a stretch limo?"