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Tom Richmond: Powell's insight into the long struggle for peace
JONATHAN Powell was far more than Tony Blair's right-hand man and chief of staff.
He was the chief negotiator during a decade of tortuous discussions that culminated in Northern Ireland's power-sharing assembly being set
up – and sworn enemies such as Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness sharing office.
Without Powell's patience, made clear in his compelling book, Great Hatred, Little Room, a deal could not have been reached – and Blair's legacy would have been even more unfulfilled.
But, aside from the complexities of the negotiations, there are some vignettes that cast fresh insight into how politicians do actually operate. Such as:
n Margaret Thatcher falling asleep shortly after starting talks with Garrett Fitzgerald, the then Irish leader. Officials advised him to make the points that he intended – and they would brief the PM when she woke up.
n How John Major stormed out of the Cabinet Room, which doubled as his office, after a stormy meeting with a hectoring Paisley (who was probably shouting "no surrender"). The trouble was that the Unionist leader refused to budge. The moral, says Powell, is never storm out of a meeting in your own office.
n Who said spin was not dead? After the Good Friday Agreement, Number 10 press supremo Alistair Campbell sent a tactless memo suggesting that the Rangers and Celtic football teams played a celebratory match in Belfast. The idea was rightly dropped because of fears that it would provoke sectarian bloodshed.
n When Bill Clinton visited Northern Ireland after the Omagh tragedy of 1998, the exhausted US President – it was, after all, at the height of the Monica Lewinsky affair – fell asleep in the room where Tony Blair was finger jabbing Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams over IRA decommissioning.
Powell reveals the discomfort of flying on planes with the two dogs owned by Peter Mandelson, the then Northern Ireland Secretary.
As to the politician's haughtiness, Powell observed, wisely, that "he would have been his own worst enemy if he had not created so many even worse enemies along the way".
n How Powell, when being questioned in Downing Street by police investigating the cash-for-honours scandal, was interrupted by an aide who said: "The Northern Ireland peace process is collapsing. Can you take a break?"
He did, and peace was ultimately delivered – in spite of the best endeavours of many of the primary players whose own self-interests led to the pointless loss of so many innocent lives.
Yet, Powell does reveal the extent of the former PM's relentless involvement in this process, even when all hope had been virtually extinguished. Blair's place in history
is assured.
I HAD the great privilege of talking to Lord Barnett about the funding of public services.
You will have heard of him. As Joel Barnett, it was he – as Labour's Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the 1970s – who devised the much-maligned Barnett Formula.
This is now held up as an example of how devolution policies favour Scotland and Wales over the English.
Tellingly, Lord Barnett sympathises and said that plain-speaking
Yorkshire voters are right to voice their displeasure.
He then went on to say that his formula was designed only to
cover the devolution settlement of the 1970s, a vote that Labour
lost, and that it was never his intention for it to be used on a long-term basis.
However, he suggested that Gordon Brown is reluctant to face up to this reality immediately because he
does not want to risk an electoral backlash from voters in Labour's Scottish heartlands.
I'm grateful to Lord Barnett for setting the record straight.
COMMONS leader Harriet Harman will need her now infamous stab vest when she reads this.
After standing in for Gordon Brown at Prime Minister's Questions, where the crisis in Zimbabwe was one of the key issues, she did not wait to listen to the Foreign Secretary's emergency statement.
Instead, Ms Harman was heard to tell David Miliband: "Just going down to say hello to the kids. Good luck." And off she waltzed.
So much for showing solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe.
WHY are you and me, as owners of the now state-owned Northern Rock, paying 10,000 in security measures at the 2.5m home of Adam Applegarth, the bank's former chief executive and one of the architects of its downfall?
It is the same Adam Applegarth who walked away with a 750,000 pay-off – and an enhanced pension worth 2.6m.
He's not short of a few bob, unless he's having difficulty acquiring a
new mortgage.
THE potty nature of politics is exemplified by Defra spending 83,400 on pot plants since 2004, while the farm subsidy payments system remains in bewildering chaos. You couldn't make it up.
ON the theme of pottiness, the BBC's mania for dumbing down its coverage of major events will be on full view today when John Parrott, the former world snooker champion and now a career Liverpudlian, is unveiled as Auntie's betting guru for the Grand National – the world's most famous steeplechase.
Give us a break.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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