View From The House - 6th November 2003

Reprinted From The Lichfield Mercury

48 Hours

The TV series, 24 hours, is exciting and tense. But not half as exciting or tense as the 48 hours or so I have had to endure. I am writing this article on Friday, the last day of October. This has been my experience…………

Harold Wilson said “A week is a long time in politics”. He was wrong. Two days can be an eternity in politics. I returned back to the House of Commons from my visit to Litchfield in America to find the place in turmoil. Labour MPs plotting to depose Blair for Brown and then, of course, there were the Conservatives. In a Division (that is, a vote), the mood in the voting lobby was grim. Conservative MPs all agreed it just couldn’t go on like this with rumour and counter rumour about the leadership. It was paralysing us. Then I received a message. I and 3 other front-bench MPs were invited to meet with IDS on Tuesday afternoon. I accepted and we chatted amiably for over an hour. He said that his leadership had to be resolved in the next few days and we all agreed about that. On Wednesday morning it was announced that the magic 25 names necessary to trigger a vote of confidence had been lodged with the Chairman of the 1922 Committee, Sir Michael Spicer.

The mood in the lobbies suddenly changed. MPs previously walking with sunken shoulders suddenly looked uplifted. Finally there was a chance that one way or another, the malaise that had afflicted the Party for months could be resolved. Then it was announced that there would be a vote the same day. At noon, IDS tackled Blair for the weekly Prime Minister’s questions with me sitting as usual on the row behind. At 2.30pm Iain addressed the 1922 Committee in the long Committee Room 14 upstairs. The ‘1922 Committee’ is, in fact, all Conservative MPs when we are in opposition and all back-bench MPs when we are in Government. We were all there plus a few from the House of Lords. It was a passionate and articulate speech and I was left thinking afterwards that if only Iain had put in performances like that over the last few months, we would not be meeting like this now. Many colleagues were watery eyed; one man broke down in tears during the course of Iain’s speech. The voting then commenced in a secret ballot. A colleague asked me, “Why has this all happened?” I answered by quoting the BBC’s Andrew Marr who said 3 weeks ago on the news: “I cannot remember a time when a Government has been so reviled, so distrusted, and so unpopular yet can be so confident of election victory”. “That is what this is all about. Our colleagues are fed up and frightened”, I told her. “People just can’t imagine IDS ever becoming Prime Minister”.

At one minute to 7pm, the same evening, Michael Spicer rose in his seat and announced the result of the vote which followed Iain’s speech. IDS had lost the confidence of his Party. There were no cheers. The announcement was met with silence and sadness. I wondered what would happen next. At around 7.30pm David Davis suddenly announced he was going to back Michael Howard. I had been weighing up whether to back David or Michael if IDS lost the vote. I was on LBC News Radio at the time, live on air. When I heard that David was not standing, I decided to back Michael Howard there and then and told the listeners so.

The following day, Thursday. I had some constituency work to do first thing. Then I went into the Chamber to tackle Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, over the continued appalling funding for Staffordshire school children compared with those in other counties. A little later, I raised the issue of the postal strike with Peter Hain, the Leader of the House, asking why no-one from the Government was prepared to come to the Commons to explain what contingency plans have been put in place to help pensioners, businesses, and other who need the postal service. I then received a message that Michael Howard would be launching his bid for the leadership of the Conservative Party at 3.30pm in a gallery opposite my office, the other side of the Thames. In the rain, I walked across Westminster Bridge to join him. The gallery was a scrum of journalists and photographers pushing and shoving each other. Michael Howard was later than expected. “Mike, can you do a long and live interview with me to fill in time?” an anxious BBC News 24 journalist asked me. So with the camera live and the lights on, while being shoved in the back by photographers, I painted a word picture of what was happening to News 24 viewers. Michael Howard then arrived and I ducked out of the way. He gave, by all accounts, a measured and conciliatory speech. He gave hope that for the first time in many years, we would be able to provide an effective opposition and offer a real possibility of an election victory to improve the lives and the welfare of our nation. The 80 or 90 MPs in the room felt a huge weight lift off their shoulders. Could this matter now be resolved swiftly without going through months of a leadership struggle?