Book review: Just A Simple Belfast Boy by Dr Brian Mawhinney

George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury makes a bold claim on the back of this book. “Brian Mawhinney is one of the truly outstanding politicians of his generation.”

Bearing in mind, Dr Brian Mawhinney was born in 1940 putting him in the same mediocre vintage as Lord Archer, John Selwyn Gummer, Jonathan Aitken and Neil Hamilton, perhaps this is faint praise. But what about John Smith? Ken Clarke? Chris Patten? Robin Cook? No, Carey’s claim is ridiculously over the top. One suspects Mawhinney would be embarrassed by it himself.

It’s probable Mawhinney’s intense religious fervour swayed Carey. Dr Brian Mawhinney was the Tory MP for Peterborough from 1979 until 1997 (I grew up there during that period myself). Before his selection as candidate, Mawhinney, like Joan of Arc, heard voices. Specifically a voice in Peterborough Cathedral saying: “I need you here”. Mawhinney may have imagined it or overheard somebody instructing a choir boy. Either way, Mawhinney remained MP for Peterborough for eighteen years. Presumably another voice then told him: “Labour are going to win your seat! Peterborough’s too full of lefties these days! Ditch them. Switch to North West Cambridgeshire!”.  Mawhinney did so, remaining MP there until 2005. He was appointed Chairman of the Football League in 2003.

On paper, Mawhinney’s record isn’t sparkling. He was Minister of State for Northern Ireland under Margaret Thatcher. Unlike under Major and especially Blair, no progress was made in the Troubles under Thatcher at all. He moved to Health, at a time of intense strife for the NHS (the Thatcher/Major years remain the historical nadir of the Health Service). Now in the Cabinet, he oversaw the disastrous farce of rail privatisation as Transport Secretary. As Tory Party Chairman he presided over the party’s largest ever 20^th century defeat in 1997.

To be fair, none of these things were wholly Mawhinney’s fault. The Tories were clearly heading for a big fall in 1997 already. It is doubtful any non-Cabinet minister could have secured peace in Northern Ireland in the Eighties.  Mawhinney is wrong about many things (gay marriage, Tony Blair) but his dedication cannot be faulted.

The book is not very well written and was almost completely overshadowed on its April release date by the reaction to Lady Thatcher’s death. But Mawhinney is clearly a genuine and dutiful public servant and fundamentally decent in a way one suspects many modern Tories are not.

I would have changed the book’s name though.”A Simple Belfast Boy” stinks of false modesty. The book barely focuses on Mawhinney’s childhood anyway. ’Life of Brian’ is probably out due to his religious convictions. How about “Doctor in the House”? Or “God Told Me To Do It”?

Book review: 5 Days In May: The Coalition and Beyond by Andrew Adonis

Some people got very angry with the Lib Dems after the Coalition was formed in 2010. They felt the party had betrayed its progressive roots for a sniff of power.
This is very unfair. The inconclusive election result virtually guaranteed the Lib Dems a shot a role in the next government whatever happened. As Labour’s Andrew Adonis reveals, they had betrayed their progressive tradition long before then.
Nick Clegg and David Laws were, to all intents and purposes, Tories from the outset. Had they not been passionately pro-European at a time when (then as now) the Tories were tearing themselves to bits over the issue, they would doubtless have joined the Tories on entering politics in the Nineties.
Laws, the author of the main previous account of the Coalition talks, 22 Days in May has been candid about his admiration for George Osborne.
He also openly complained:
“Many Lib Dems were as disenfranchised with Labour as they had earlier been with the Conservatives….the endless centralising and micromanaging, the failure to embrace radical constitutional reform…and the lack of progress on social mobility and improving public services…”
Adonis is rightly astonished by Laws’ words. The Lib Dem seems to have forgotten the revival of the NHS, the thousands of new teachers and nurses, the introduction of devolution, reform of the House of Lords, civil partnerships, the introduction of the minimum wage. Labour in fact had much to be proud of during their thirteen years in office.
But Laws and Clegg weren’t interested in all that. They had no intention of fulfilling their promise to abolish student tuition fees either. They went through the charade of talks with Labour only to fatally undermine them by issuing bogus reports of “bad body language” from the Labour side, a charge which is impossible to verify. The Lib Dems in truth wanted to be with the Tories all along.
Some on the Labour side did their bit too, former cabinet ministers David Blunkett and John Reid each publicly doing their bit to make it harder for a Lib-Lab pact to work. As in 1950 and 1978, Labour did not fight hard enough to keep hold of the reins of power. Once they had relinquished it, it was easier for a new government to trash their record while in office.
But the Lib Dems are the real villains here. To add insult to injury, Clegg dealt his party a very poor hand in negotiations with the Tories, failing even to secure a department for itself.
The end result is that we effectively have an undiluted Tory Government committed to an austerity budget which isn’t working. This is compulsive reading, particularly for anyone contemplating a Coalition with the Lib Dems in 2015.
You have been warned.