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A year that went from ExCel to the Ex-Factor
Ann Treneman
Parliamentary sketch: The TImes
Filed 28Dec09
©Ann Treneman
This article was originally published in The TImes on 24th December 2009.
It is reproduced here with the kind permission of its author and of the newspaper.
From the trillions spent on saving the world to the 88p spent
on a bath plug it has been a time of unparalleled excess
This is the day for leftovers, at least in my house, but at Westminster it has felt that way all week, if not all month. It does not even seem as if, politically, the year has ended properly.
My last sighting of the Prime Minister was when I glanced up at the television this week and saw him talking about climate change, live from Kirkcaldy, his face an unsettling shade of yellow, not so much buttercup as that eerie eau-de-nil that you get around a bruise. It was as if he was experimenting with being a poltergeist. I’m told that this was a technical hitch due to “video streaming” but it still looked as if he should go to A&E, pronto.
Actually if any year should end in hospital, it is this one. Normally Gordon Brown holds some kind of end of year “it’s a wrap” press conference. I can understand why he may not want to wax eloquent on the past 12 months. An honest appraisal would be something along the lines of: “Life’s a bitch and then you die.”
But, still, I can’t see it that way. It may have been a horrible year but it is our horrible year. So forget bah, humbug. I’m going for hah, humbug, al though I don’t know what Charles Dickens, whose contempt for politicians fed his parliamentary sketches like an intravenous drip, would have to say about that.
Actually in a way it is perfect for Gordon to go directly from saving the world in Copenhagen to his bunker in Scotland, accompanied only by his video stream. It’s lonely work being a global pioneer and certainly his unique Rule Britannia II strategy is one of my themes of the year. This year, amid the evil twins of expenses and recession, Mr Brown has tried to rise above it all, literally, by strapping on his special jet-pack and going global.
Certainly he will think that the G20 meeting in April, in the giant tin can that is the ExCeL centre, was the acme of his political life. The leaders promised to spend one trillion dollars to save the world economy. Has anyone seen a penny? Who knows! Every time I try to find out people look at me like I’m crazy. I now realise the money is a mere detail. What mattered was that, for a moment, we were at the epicentre of the world stage.
Plus it got Barack and Michelle to pay a visit. I have never seen our PM so happy as he was at their joint press conference in London on April Fool’s Day. Only weeks before Gordo had been to Washington and had not even been given a press conference but something called a “pooled spray”, which sounds like something to do with tom cats but is when journalists shout questions from behind a sofa. But now, in the splendour of empire that is the Locarno Room in the Foreign Office, it was all “Barack” this and “Gordon” that. Our PM looked almost bashful as he enthused: “We’ve been talking about not the treadmill of politics, but the treadmill that we are both on every day, the running machines!”
He was glowing, not like a poltergeist but like a bride.
In the real world, however, the ExCeL factor did not last for this was the year of the Ex-Factor, both in terms of the excesses of the banks and the expenses of the MPs. In the daily grind of Westminster these two cataclysmic events became intertwined. Each had a similar feel. As the recession crashed around us, you never knew what new economic horror you would awake to. Then, in the spring, the same happened with the expenses scandal. It was as if we were on a daily diet of extreme politics.
Gradually, themes emerged. One of the gifts that this year has given us has been the Non-Apology Apology. Sorry is no longer the hardest word but the easiest. Indeed on its own, a mere “sorry” is no longer adequate. This year it was amplified, intensified and (sorry, no really I am) adverbified.
It began last winter when Fred the Shred and his fellow bank robbers appeared before the Treasury Select Committee. “We are profoundly and I think I would say unreservedly sorry at the turn of events,” said Lord Stevenson, the former chairman of HBOS. The turn of events. Doesn’t that just say it all? Sir Fred then made an “unqualified” apology. Later, when we saw the size of his pension, we could see how unqualified it was.
So sorry, then, but no regrets. In the Commons the best (ie, worst) faux-pology came from Jacqui Smith, whose second home turned out to be the one with her family (and our porn, but that’s another story). Her apology was as miserly as her bill to us for her 88p bathplug. As she stood up in the Commons, a “doughnut” of her supporters around her, she told us at some length about why, actually, she was right. Then, at the very end, swallowing her words like a kebab at midnight, she blurted out: “I therefore apologise to the House.”
Another theme has been our visceral need to name and shame. Other ages had the stocks or the scold’s bridle. We have select committees and media scrums. Indeed the main problem with the bankers is that most of them were so damn anonymous. The only truly memorable one was Fred the Shred although, for a brief moment in February, the nation’s ire fixated on Sir James Crosby, who went from hired to fired in record time.
For MPs, the naming and shaming has at times taken on the feel of being chased by a vigilante gang. They scurry round, rats on a sinking ship, disoriented as to how it all happened. Many, on their home turf (lawn treatments paid for by us in many cases), were actually spat at. All political careers all end in failure but, until this year, not many ended with saliva. “Roll on death,” sighed one MP as he contemplated his future.
In both cases, the end game remains elusive. So far MPs have paid back almost a million, a piddling amount in comparison to some banker’s bonuses that were never supposed to happen again. We end the year poorer than ever before (the national debt during the past 12 months has gone from £706 billion to £845 billion). Are we wiser? Hah! This year is staggering to an end. The next has to be better. Doesn’t it?
©Ann Treneman
Further reading recommended by Land-Care
Treneman, Ann (2009). Annus Horribilis: The Worst Year in British Politics.
This book
can be ordered for £7.99 (rrp £9.99) on 0845 2712134 or visit timesonline.co.uk/booksfirst
Irvine, James (2009).Speaker Michael Martin remits office: he'll be gone on 21st June 09
See HOMEPAGE, filed 20 May 09, www.land-care.org.uk Click Here to View
Treneman, Ann (2009).. A Speaker trapped and helpless in the House of assassins.
Reproduced with permission from The TImes.
See HOMEPAGE, filed 19 May 09, www.land-care.org.uk Click Here to View
Irvine, James (2006). Another conference that ignores the problems. Review of Royal Society of Edinburgh conference " The Creation of Wealth" 16th November 2005.
See HOMEPAGE, filed 04 Jan 06, www.land-care.org.uk Click Here to View
Linklater, Magnus (2009). Cybernats — the Christmas present nobody wants.
Reproduced with permission from The TImes.
See HOMEPAGE, filed 27 Dec 09, www.land-care.org.uk Click Here to View
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