Above (my picture): statue of Richard the Lionheart outside the Houses of Parliament. The sword held by King Richard would have been used more for slashing rather than stabbing. Weapons used routinely by gangs in inner cities include swords (both of the slashing and stabbing variety), machetes, knives and guns.
Most of the morning I was in a meeting with Alan and Angela, discussing the distribution of the new accounts (Angela has been promoted to Assistant Account Executive and each of us are giving her a few accounts to get her “list” going).
Inevitably in this situation you think of the three clients you would most like to get rid of, but giving Angela the big BQW account (a poisoned chalice by any assessment) wasn’t an option.
I had deliberately chosen the upstairs Boardroom for the meeting so that we could have the television on, the sound turned low, and we half-watched the screen while talking through the various job bags (and in any case we had finished the serious briefing by eleven o’clock and were just working our way through the second pot of coffee).
At eleven-thirty the Daily Politics programme came on (a precursor to Prime Minister’s Questions). The panel began discussing the latest knife crimes, which have become an everyday occurrence in London. No-one seemed to know what to do.
“They are all tiptoeing round the elephant in the room, afraid to mention the people who are doing most of these stabbings” said Alan. “It’s always society’s fault. No-one mentions which part of society is most responsible for inner city gangs.”
“The police have a statutory obligation to say the opposite” said Angela, displaying a sophisticated grasp of Home Office policy that surprised me.
“If they can’t define the problem properly they are never going to solve it” said Alan.
The studio discussion rumbled on until twelve, when the cameras went live to the House of Commons for questions to the Prime Minister.
While Gordon Brown droned through his introductory remarks (his droning has a comforting quality, like the Shipping Forecast) we could see a shuffling of seats on the bench behind him, an anonymous-looking man being ushered along to sit next to Chancellor Alistair Darling.
“Who IS that man?” said Alan, “we see him every week.”
None of us knew who the man was. He settled himself down between the two most important offices in the land. Aged in his late sixties he had a kindly face and reminded me of a once-important board director who has retired and been forgotten but then comes back to the office for the day and whom no-one knows quite what to do with.
There was a stir when Leader of the Opposition David Cameron produced a leaked letter from the government Chief Whip to the oily Keith Vaz, apparently promising “appropriate rewards” in return for Keith Vaz finessing a narrow majority in the 42-days-detention-without-trial vote. In an untruth Gordon Brown denied there had been any deals in the run-up to the vote. Then in an apparent Freudian slip he spontaneously denied buying the votes of the Ulster Unionists (David Cameron hadn’t said anything about the Ulster Unionists).
In an inexplicable last-minute riposte to David Cameron’s final question, the Prime Minister accused the Leader of the Opposition of “acting soft on terrorism” (did he really mean to say this, or did it just come out?).
Questions were called from the backbenches.
A question was asked about rocketing oil prices, and the Prime Minister responded, without a hint of self-deprecating irony, by talking about “our draught-proofing programme”. This is the sort of thing he does best. In a time of war, famine and economic turmoil it is comforting to know our national leader is concerned whether we are sitting in a draught or not (I don’t mean this sarcastically).
In a scripted question (obviously scripted - this is not how normal people speak) Labour MP Shona McIsaac placed NHS poly-clinics in an interesting context, but then ruined the ending with some unfortunate last-minute pointing (which had an intimidating effect through the camera).
Sir Peter Tapsall, Conservative MP for Louth & Horncastle, stood bolt upright and said what most people privately think - the war in Afghanistan is un-winnable (not least because there are no clear objectives to “win”, because the resources are not being committed to the campaign, and because the idea of a thirty-year war has no popular support).
The questions came to an end and the cameras went back to the studio. By this time our meeting had morphed into lunchtime, and others had come into the Board Room. On the screen there was a debate about social mobility, with Mancunian radio presenter and socialist Terry Christian complaining that the Labour party had been worse than the Tories in helping the working class.
Guest politicians Hazel Blears (Labour) and Chris Grayling (Conservative) debated this point.
Chris Grayling was moderate, effective, reasoned - but did not make any commitments.
Hazel Blears comes from the Comical Ali school of politicians (and like the Iraqi former minister of propaganda she cheerfully pretends everything is going swimmingly while the invaders are bursting into the citadel, fire is falling from the skies, and her colleagues are running away in panic).
Watch PMQs for yourself: http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page306.asp
Read that letter: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/labour/2236713/Keith-Vaz-fighting-to-keep-his-job-over-Geoff-Hoon-anti-terrorism-vote-'rewards'-letter.html
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