In celebration of the birth of a new style of British politics, and the overdue education of the British voter about how their constitution really works.

I.

On election day, the voters made their decisions.
Their pronouncement, many interpreted.
Some said people agreed on Tory, or progressive, or none!
But the truth was rather more complicated.
Not one choice was made, but very very many,
Their multiplicity left each other’s frustrated.

Cameron announced he could work with Clegg,
And Clegg was as keen to reciprocate.
For the talks they sent in two teams of four,
Both knew a deal tough to negotiate.
Not just each other they’d need to appease.
Party members and voters they’d have to placate.

Brown sat still in Downing Street,
Prime minister uninterrupted, as per constitution.
When one resigns he recommends his replacement,
No allowance made for any interregnum.
With none in majority and no clear successor,
Brown should continue ‘til the dealing was done.

As Tories asked LibDems to put them in charge,
Labour dared to hope they’d be the ones to remain.
Secret parallel conversations commenced,
With a view to keeping Labour in power again.
Only when all the hands had been on the table,
Would we know who had best played the game.

A noisy thousand marched upon London,
Saying this was the time for a fair voting system,
Or asking to retake Parliament (from who, we know not).
Let’s just say their views weren’t entirely consistent.
It was to Clegg that they made their demands,
Who was polite as ever, and promised he’d listen.

Newscaster Kay Burley moaned at great length
As the protestors walked by her outdoor broadcast.
From the throng Billy Bragg granted impromptu interview,
But hostile in general was the crowd that amassed.
They shouted “Sack Kay Burley, and down with Murdoch!”
“Go home and watch Sky News”, scolded Burley, at the last.

Across television, radio and internet,
Countless opinions were being said.
Some didn’t vote for such-and-such party,
Some didn’t vote for such-and-such government head.
Pretty much all of them were perfectly right,
This system’s just one vote per one MP, instead.

II.

The public faced instability and pacts unwanted,
They fretted over jobs and the public purse.
Would a new government collapse like a house of cards?
Or would poor losers return to office like a curse?
Would the people be served a steady diet of cuts?
Or drowning in debt, would they be further immersed?

A price had to be paid for Labour’s defeat.
One intractable man, the obstacle to coalition.
He’d been difficult with the LibDems before,
And was unpopular with most of the nation.
For Labour to stay, Brown had to leave,
Whether pushed, or going by his own volition.

So Brown said he’d go in four months or so,
Enough time to select his replacement.
A dignified election for Labour leader,
Would compensate Brown’s weighty displacement.
The press mused about Labour’s tactical genius,
But all still depended on the LibDem’s consent.

Labour’s spin doctors were sent out to spin,
Though nobody knows what Campbell’s job’s supposed to be,
It seems you no longer need a proper career,
To be invited to spout off on national TV.
Bolton got riled at being told what he thought,
So he told Campbell off, in a style most unseemly.

Salmond said he’d work with the Westminster parties
As he calls them with such obnoxious conceit.
But he started to consume his humble pie
When he thought his exclusion was likely complete.
There’d be no handsome payout for Scotland
If the coalition had no need for SNP seats.

Who’d dish up the biggest plate of electoral reform?
Hague said the last offer was an AV referendum.
Labour trumped that by offering AV straight away,
Plus a PR plebiscite, as an addendum.
But LibDems worried Labour’s government might not last
Long enough to realize the proportionate intention.

LibDem and Labour made little progress.
Some thought it a ruse to sharpen Tory appetites,
To prompt more compromise from the Tories,
But that Clegg always had Cameron firmly in his sights.
Tories and LibDems were making real progress.
In the concluson, Labour gave up, without a fight.

III.

Brown left office with great dignity.
Not a squatter at all, no matter the report.
Britain’s constitution requires a prime minister,
He left when the contest was no longer sport.
To Buckingham Palace he left with alacrity,
His wife and his children were his escort.

Brown’s recommendation to the Queen was given,
David Cameron would be his successor.
Soon after Cam boarded his silver jaguar,
Taking him to become the big job’s possessor.
With the Queen, Cam’s photo was also taken,
The Queen now become Cam’s political confessor.

Cam returned and he spoke plainly to the press
Standing outside the famous door of number ten.
Nobody knew who would be in Cam’s cabinet,
But by then coalition seemed to be most certain.
Cam looked back and thanked Brown’s long service,
Then looked forward, to good times’ return.

Gordon Brown said his fond goodbyes,
And (rightly) blamed himself for his failing.
To a job in charity he hoped to go,
Though knowing him, it won’t be plain sailing.
He proclaimed himself Labour through and so through,
But it’s his inflexibility that was often cause of his ailing.

The news came out in fits and in spurts,
Over who would sit round the big table.
A double-headed leader would preside over affairs,
Clegg answering when Cam was not able.
Two men of same age with mutual respect.
Born of a familiar breed and similar stable.

Osbourne Chancellor and Cable in Business,
May the unexpected Home Secretary,
Huhne’s job the climate, Hague Foreign Office,
Ken Clarke to deliver justice exemplary,
And whenever there’s cuts that need to be made,
LibDems and Tories as equal accessories.

Cam and Clegg showed their rapport
Hosting springtime in number ten’s grounds.
Theirs was the flavour of this new era,
By blending together, a new recipe they had found.
This the first taste; five years of ham and eggs,
With no Brown sauce or pork for Salmond.

In memory of Britain’s anachronistic electoral system, which hopefully died on May 6, the evening of the 2010 General Election.

I.

He did not wear his azure tie,
For blue is calm but sad,
And fired up was his campaign
Having fought with all he had.
Thirty-six hours on the road,
Killed the battlebus clutch pad.

Then there was his rival,
looking unhappy and grey,
A great weight upon his shoulders,
From saving the world, or just the day.
His wife always at his side,
Was he proving he’s not gay?

And there was the other rival,
The king of TV debate.
Cleggstacy had wowed the nation,
Though discovered rather late.
Would it deliver a big breakthrough,
Or leave the LibDems still third rate?

The Sunderland kids had practiced
Passing the ballot box.
The Returning Officer kept both eyes
Glued to his stopclocks.
But the record survived unscathed.
Too many voters used their vox.

But many others were denied,
In the first tragedy of the night.
They waited in the queues,
But in the end lost their right.
Isn’t this the freedom we speak of,
When we send soldiers out to fight?

The night began with an exit,
Instead of an entrance.
Of the prospect of majority,
Polls said none had the chance.
Though when asked about partnering up,
The parties looked at each other askance.

As the results started to come in,
The swingometer got broken.
The swings could not explain,
How the populous had spoken.
Generalizations were swept aside
Analysis found superficial and token.

II.

As the results started to come in
Cameron watched them down the pub.
Whilst Brown took a little nap,
The Tories, his fellow Scots did snub.
Clegg went down to say sorry,
To those excluded from the voter’s club.

Harman and others started to mention
The prospect of legal action.
Apart from their lack of real power,
Electoral Commission promised reaction.
But talk of court fights all faded
As deal-making became the attraction.

Cleggmania just evaporated.
Tories claimed the voters decided.
Labour said “they’ve not picked a winner!”
“These polls say that we’ve tied it!”
The only thing they could agree about
Was the people were all divided.

In the courting of the LibDems,
They argued about who got the first dance.
Labour claimed home-field advantage and the
Constitution promises them first advance.
But Clegg reasoned Tory seats and votes
Needed the smaller enhance.

Smith finally paid for those porno films.
Ulster’s Robinson was disowned.
The Welsh tired of Opik’s cheek.
Clarke reaped what he had sown.
Rantzen barely registered.
But Balls held on to his own.

At the winning of Brown’s seat,
He gave a valedictory.
When Cameron made his speech,
To the Libs he was unconciliatory.
Clegg said how many more votes
Only gave a pyrrhic victory.

Griffin’s fascists made no in-roads.
Plaid and Scots Nats were unspectacular.
UKIP’s performance was stubbornly earthbound,
After Farage fell out the sky the morn before.
But parachuting Lucas into Brighton
Gave the Greens their very first MP score.

III.

Day broke and people saw in new light.
Labour decided they loved PR,
And the progressive left enjoyed
Their best election ever.
Most of all, their own result
Had beat expectations by far.

The Lib Dems were in a gloomy mood.
No political dawn and no breakthrough.
There were big wins and big losses too,
Yet gold looked pale compared to blue.
In the final reckoning they realized
Deal-making might still deliver something new.

The Tories were being tight-lipped
But clearly were thinking very hard.
Not enough seats for a majority?
Even so, No.10 need not be barred.
Found enough in common with the LibDems
To hold them in surprising regard.

Brown looked a rejuvenated man,
Thanked Mandelson for all that he’d done.
Then Mandelson hinted to the press
What he’d meant by ’stable government’ all along.
It just meant Labour somehow in power,
Even if that requires Brown be gone.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
And now New Labour is dead.
Some wield the knife themselves,
Some just say the word.
Mandelson did it to benefit Labour,
At the price of making it absurd.

And perhaps short of a dance partner,
Brown should grasp when to bow out.
Even the greatest fighter should know
When it’s time for his last bout.
The dance music keeps playing on,
And everyone turns about.

Move on. Everyone makes a mistake. Nobody is perfect. There are three phrases you will not hear Peter Mandelson, Harriet Harman, or least of all Gordon Brown utter when talking about their rivals. “It’s the same old Conservative Party” became Brown’s mantra for the third of the three leader’s debates. Well maybe so, but perhaps the penitent sinner, as Brown describes himself, should be more forgiving of others, if he wants forgiveness for himself. David Cameron does not look like he is leading the same old Conservative Party and he was not a member of the government that did the things that Brown rails against. Political parties, like people, have the capacity to change, as was ably demonstrated by New Labour’s total rejection of what remained of its pseudo-socialism, replaced with a snappy line in business-friendly social democracy. I do not know if the Conservative Party has changed. We can only ever know by taking a risk and letting them into power. We would never have known if Labour had changed if they were not elected to government, but they were, and they had. Change need not always be a good thing. Lest we forget, the transformation to New Labour emboldened Brown to do things that Old Labour would never have contemplated - loosening the regulation of banks being a very good example. If you have a vestigial memory that Labour was the party that could be relied upon to be tough on reckless businesses, you might find it in conflict with more recent evidence that their government did quite the contrary.

Move on. But to where? Do many people seriously want Brown to remain as Prime minister now? The man has been subject to countless attempts to dethrone him by his own Labour Party, some of whom seem to utterly despise him. Brown’s continued survival relied on blackmail and bullying, and the startling absence of a decent alternative. If his own party are so unsure of his competence to lead, it is too much to expect the people at large to be more optimistic about keeping Brown in office. Indeed, that seems to explain the Labour Party’s main campaign message - ‘we are terrible but the alternatives are even worse’. If the polls are to be believed, Labour’s attempts to steal the popularity of the Lib Dems by positioning them as progressive but unelectable have backfired. Rather a lot of people would like to see the Lib Dems stop both the Tories and Labour from forming a majority government. Clegg’s successful shtick is that the big two are both as bad as each other. Again, if the polls are right, Clegg is making the shtick stick, and whenever Brown bashes Cameron about the Tory governments of ancient history, he inadvertently bolsters Clegg’s argument.

Move on. The problem Labour faces is that it has not moved on. Brown was so long the Primeminister-in-waiting, but continues to behave like a man both unprepared and ill-suited to the job. Brown did not move on, he just moved up. Nor has his top team moved on. Take a look at who gets rolled out when Brown gets himself into trouble. Peter Mandelson, the exemplar of Tony’s Cronies, is a man who left government not once, but twice in disgrace. Despite the antipathy between him and Brown, Mandelson had to be brought back - and given a peerage - in order to shore up a front bench thinned because of the endless in-fighting. The mind jumps up and down like a pogo stick trying to reconcile those facts with the idea that Labour wants to clean up government or is passionate about reforming the House of Lords. No.2 apologist in the Labour hierarchy of woe is Harriet Harman, a woman who spent most of the time in junior jobs or excluded from government because her colleagues thought she was… well, crap. It would seem that senior Labour MPs regard Harman as a moron, and voters have seen very little evidence to the contrary. Nevertheless, time served has seen Harman elevated to the lofty heights of deputy-head-of-the-country, except that we know Mandelson is the real deputy and that Brown never lets go of the leash anyway. The ‘fresher’ faces in the front bench are Darling and Johnson, both exceptionally competent and balanced compared to their colleagues, but who could never be expected to set pulses racing and hearts aflutter. After them, you have the brothers Miliband and the husband and wife team of Cooper and Balls. The British public are rightly suspicious of the idea of a meritocracy which so conveniently keeps things in the family. But the most bizarre signal that Labour is stuck in a rut came from two improbably cheerleaders resurrected for the tedious ‘Brown won’ chorus line that immediately follows the Leaders Debate: Alastair Campbell and Oona King. Spin from the king of dodgy dossiers and the woman who got beat by George Galloway - is Labour really so short of talent that this is the best they can muster? Is the reason why Gordon Brown had to turn to the GOATS - the government of all the talents - because of the dearth of talent developed by own his fractious party?

Move on. That is what we were told by Mandelson and Harman after Brown’s gaffe on the streets of Rochdale. Brown said sorry, was sorry, felt sorry, so move on. But I would like to linger on this topic a while longer, just like they would like to linger in government a while longer. A 65-year-old grandmother and life-long Labour supporter asks Brown some impromptu questions and Brown snidely calls her a ‘bigot’ behind her back. Who does Gillian Duffy thinks she is? The trouble with Gillian Duffy is that she knows exactly who she is. The trouble with Gordon Brown is that he does not. Duffy is a working class woman from the North of England. She is exactly the kind of person who Brown sees himself working for, exactly the kind of voter that Brown depends on to win elections, and exactly the kind of human being that Brown is completely unable to relate to on a personal level. Brown thrives in the company of academics, politicos and sycophants. With everyone else he struggles. Coming from the North of England myself, I found the most telling feature of the exchange between Duffy and Brown was Brown’s naivety about how working class Northerners converse. These people should be the heart and soul of the Labour Party, but Brown has spent so little time in their company, that he simply cannot talk to them like ordinary people.

Move on. Working class Northerners are always moving on - to the next topic they want to talk about. So furiously do they move on, they have no time to let anyone else finish their sentence. The end result is that they talk over each other, time and again. This may seem strange to anyone unfamiliar with the practice, but it is possible to do it, hear what the other person is saying and keep the conversation going. You need to wait long enough into a sentence to get the gist of how it will conclude, then you leap in and start responding to your interlocutor. It is not a sign of rudeness so much as a sign of engagement - why not talk and listen at the same time, and get double the conversation as a result? But Brown, worried about how he would sound on his lapel microphone, had no idea of how to engage with a Gillian Duffy unwilling to wait for his answers. Frustrated at his own interpersonal weaknesses, unable to relate to the people that he supposedly cares for, Brown ended up talking to himself, whilst Duffy talked to herself. Duffy talked about how she cared for disabled children, and then went on to the topics that worry her: tax on her pension, the debt crisis, benefits for people who do not deserve them, the scale of immigration from Eastern Europe, and tuition fees for students. In his parallel conversation, Brown made some insincere comments about the importance of working with children, gave ineffective advice about Duffy’s tax, listed his plans for how he will reduce debt, said immigration balances out and that tuition fees were needed.

Move on. Brown did, and you could sense he was glad to. He was glad to get away from a woman who has her concerns and, quite reasonably, took her short chance to convey them to the Prime minister. Brown leaped to the safety of his limo, surrounded by his apparatchiks, but in his hurry forgot about the microphone still attached to his lapel. We should be grateful he did forget, because we learned, or rather confirmed, something about Gordon Brown. Behind all the bluster about Brown’s caring nature, the incident reinforced what a two-faced wretch Gordon Brown really is.

“Should never have put me with that woman”

Only a few days earlier, a change was announced in Labour’s campaign tactics. The decision was that Brown would spend more time with real people, and not just surrounded by grinning Labour party goons. I cannot have been the only person to laugh at this change of tack - it seemed so likely to backfire. That the decision was made shows that Brown is badly out of touch. It did backfire spectacularly, because Brown is out of touch. One wonders if Brown has ever been in touch. What we saw and heard in Rochdale was what happens when Brown spends time with real people. Brown’s reaction was genuine, a description that you would not normally give of his public performances. Brown was unhappy to be put alongside someone who made him look bad. You know the type that makes Brown look bad: lifelong working class Labour party voters who respectfully ask questions about the challenges the country faces. Do not put Brown alongside them, because they make Brown look bad. A leader might embrace tough questions as an opportunity to shine. Not Brown, because his answers are so poor. A leader might embrace reaching out to the people whose support he needs to stay in power. Not Brown, because those voters do not understand just how brilliant Brown is, and cannot be educated or told why. They just have to have faith that Brown is best, even if he cannot talk to them in a language they understand. And if they express doubts and fears, then they should not be listened to, because their doubts and fears are plainly wrong.

“She’s just a sort of bigoted woman that said she used to be Labour, I mean, it’s just ridiculous”

Here is one definition of the word ‘bigot’:

A person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices.

It seems clear to me who the real bigot is. It is not the ordinary woman just asking some questions. The bigot is the self-absorbed pretend leader, who secured his position as a hand-me-down by way of an internal coup. The bigot is the leader who can only maintain his leadership by intimidating his own party, and by generating fear and loathing of the alternatives offered to ordinary voters. The bigot is the man unable to explain himself but no less convinced of his utter rightness on every point. The bigot is the person who pretends to serve and care for people, to appreciate their efforts and concerns, and then disparages those same people when he thinks himself out of earshot. And the bigot is someone who simply cannot hear what people are telling him, who only hears a rhetoric twisted by his askew view of the world around them. Look at the excuses given by Brown for the contempt he showed for this one ordinary working class Labour voter:

“It was a question about immigration that really I think was annoying”

“I misunderstood what she said”

“I thought she was talking about expelling all university students for this country who were foreigners.”

If you listen again to the encounter, it is hard to correlate these excuses with what actually took place. The only possible way to reconcile Brown’s actions with Brown’s explanations is to assume he had a rush of blood to the head, got angry (but succeeded in hiding his temper) and simply stopped listening to what Gillian Duffy was saying. Take a look again and try to imagine yourself both actually listening to Gillian Duffy and then misinterpreting what she said in the way Brown says he did.

I can only imagine myself acting like Brown if I assume I hear just one word in three spoken by Gillian Duffy - and that I then fill the blanks by drawing on a volatile reserve of anger, bile and disappointment that must lie in the pit of Brown’s stomach. That bitter brew clogged Brown’s ears and then coated the back of his throat, causing him to spit out his disgust with an ordinary working class Labour voter, who simply did not behave the way Brown wants and expects her to behave. Brown is a bigot, and he expects the working class to behave like some deferential pastiche from a 1920’s newsreel. In the repulsive caricature of working class people that plays in Brown’s mind, they all know their place and express their gratitude for whatever the Labour Party condescends to give them, whilst never questioning what they take away. This campaign has underlined the underbelly of New Labour - that it must take working class voters for granted whilst it chases after the middle class. The political calculation is that the working classes have nowhere else to turn, so can be relied upon at the ballot box. But calculation does not breed affection. This election campaign has ably illustrated the lack of affection Brown inspires in a people for whom he shows no affection in turn.

Gordon Brown does not have a charming bone in his body. More importantly, he is weak at communication, as was ably demonstrated by his moribund performances in the Leaders Debates. The general public concluded that he finished a resounding third best amongst the three leaders, no matter how many times Mandelson, Campbell and King insisted otherwise. One presumes the only people who thought he won a debate where the people as equally bigoted as Brown - those who had decided Brown was the winner even before he spoke his first word. Communication is not incidental to the job of a leader. Communication is a core skill of an effective leader. Brown may be an effective decision-maker, but all those years in Blair’s shadow protected him from a thorough examination of his frailties as a communicator. In this last few weeks we have seen how even Brown’s insincere body language undoes him as a leader. This is most obviously seen in that pained smile he uses to hide his fear on those occasions when he is actually supposed to be projecting remorse or gravitas. The debates and Duffy have given the British public even more evidence of Brown’s failings, when no more evidence was really needed. Brown is a very excellent technocrat, able to manage information and reach conclusions, but he lacks the common touch, does not inspire confidence, and he cannot explain himself. He needs to return to a backroom job, because the harsh light of politics shines too deeply into the dark shadows of his soul.

Move on. Everyone makes a mistake. Nobody is perfect. Brown’s mistake was to become a politician in the first place. He might have made a top-notch civil servant or administrator. Rather ironically, he would have excelled in banking. But all Brown’s great ability is put to poor use when compensating for his obvious flaws as a politician.

Gordon Brown, it is time to move on.

‘The War on Terror’. It is not a phrase you hear much any more. The reason for its decline in usage is simple enough. We lost. If we had won, we would have never have heard the end of it.

The War on Terror was never going to be won or lost the same as other wars. Tell-tale signs of who wins or loses a war usually come at the end. It comes in the form of who surrenders, where the new borders are, how many bodies are buried, whose anthem you are made to listen to and whose flag you find yourself saluting. Not so with the War on Terror. The War on Terror was not a fight over land. The War on Terror was a fight over freedom. Apparently we had it, and the terrorists did not like it. They were going to take it away, by killing a few of us and scaring the remainder. That means that a victory in this war is measured in increased freedom. And that is why I am sure we must have lost.

The truly scary thing about terrorism is the idea that you live your meaningless, hum-drum and generally unexciting life and suddenly - boom! - you are dead. You get on a bus or plane or train, walk down the wrong street or into the wrong building and there you come to an abrupt end. One minute you are considering what to eat for dinner. The next minute you are never going to win the Nobel Prize for Literature or become an international playboy or win the lottery or a million other things you were never going to do anyway. Whilst alive, you have hope. When dead, your story is over. The terrorists will randomly, meaninglessly, cut your life short. Of course, people lose their lives every day because of a million-and-one random, meaningless acts. Your car crashes because the accelerator got stuck. You fall off your skis and hit your head. You do not visit the doctor and ask her to check that new lump. You live in Haiti and there is an earthquake. You live in the Congo and a mosquito bites you. So why no War on Skiing? Why no War on Malaria? Why no War on Earthquakes or Cancer or Toyota? It is because we do what we want to do and we want to drive cars and to ski and to spend our time watching television instead of seeing the doctor or designing a better accelerator pedal. And it is because we live in a world with earthquakes and diseases and danger and we accept that. The difference with terror is that, unlike skiers or Toyota or mosquitoes, terrorists mean to kill other people, and if their tactics seem to work, they may do it more.

The problem with dealing with terrorists is they do not know what they want. Or rather, they know what they want, but have no idea how to get it. Terrorists want things like a planet where everyone thinks like them, or glory in the afterlife. Their ultimate goals are fantastic. They are unattainable and disconnected from what the terrorists actually do. The terrorists chances of success are as good as the chances of doctors finding a cure for cancer with bombs or the chances that Toyota will build better cars using bombs. In this world, it is perfectly possible for somebody to want something and have no idea how to get it. That somebody may then do something irrelevant and nasty in the false belief it will help them achieve their goal. We have seen this conundrum with the human race many times before. Worried about the next harvest? Sacrifice someone. Suffering bad luck? Burn the local witch. The terrorists are just the modern incarnation of the innate human propensity to foolishly attempt to solve problems through a futile murder. The War on Terror was a war on a method, not on a country. The method is flawed, because violence does not beget a better harvest or a brotherhood of man. But then, the method to fight terrorism is just as flawed. Killing the terrorists is pointless if new people are born who replenish the ranks of the terrorists. The education that murder is a potential route to success lasts longer than the fear of retributive violence.

We could allow terrorists to believe what they want to believe and then kill them if they act on their beliefs. A better approach might be to change their beliefs. In Afghanistan, the US scored a great victory over the ailing Soviet Union by giving weapons to people who, by most definitions, deserve to be called terrorists. I call that a kind of education - the education that terrorism can lead to success. When the Soviets were defeated, the American money stopped. A better US investment would have been to put dollars into schools. Education would have been a better long-term investment than waiting until the time to fight another war. The West started losing the War on Terror even before it realized the War had begun. We started losing by placing our trust in the wrong methods to achieve our goals. In that respect, we were just as misguided as the terrorists. We were wrong to believe that the threat of greater violence can stop people being violent. We were wrong to believe that spending on being violent to our enemies and spending on security at home is more cost-effective than educating people to stop being violent. Our beliefs were as wrong as those of the terrorist.

It is a poor doctor that treats symptoms and not the cause. We lost the war because we became preoccupied with symptoms and ignored the ailment. Terrorism is a cancer, but killing the cancer with violence only prompts more cancer. Better to live a healthy life and reduce the chances of getting sick in the first place. The discipline of freedom is that we must use it well in order to preserve it. We had the freedom to educate; we did not use it well. Now, we fight violence with violence and sacrifice the one thing we were fighting for: our freedom. We spend on spying on ourselves. We spend on listening to our own conversations. We spend on searching ourselves as we board flights. We spend and spend and spend, and mostly we spend to make ourselves less free, because we do not trust what the terrorist will do with his freedom. We could have spent on educating our potential enemies. We could have given our potential enemy something valuable that would have been diminished each time they kill: the loss of friendships, trade, knowledge, and of their own freedom. If these things have no value to the terrorist, we should spend more on making them valuable to all. Better that than spending on making them less valuable to us.

[An unoccupied, windowless but otherwise plushly decorated hotel room. The single door opens and a valet escorts Tony Blair, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher into the room. Churchill and Thatcher take seats on either side of the room. Blair stands in the middle.]

Blair: I have no regrets.

Thatcher: I have no regrets.

Churchill: I have many regrets. A man without regret is a man who has done nothing or cared even less.

Blair: Look, what I mean to say is…

Thatcher: Will you keep on doing that? Will you keep on reinterpreting what you say, like a chorus of commentary upon yourself? There’s no voters here. There’s no need to maintain the pretense. Stand by what you say and do. There’s no pretense here - here, of all places.

Blair: The thing is, I really don’t see why I’m here. The decision I took — and frankly would take again — was in the best interests of peace. If there was any possibility that Saddam could develop weapons of mass destruction…

Churchill: Any possibility, do you say? By that principle I assume you’d enslave us all, for the possibility always persists. The man of judgement balances probabilities, not possibilities. When Stalin sequestered half of Europe within his iron curtain, his tyranny was certain. The reason for our not acting was not based on possibility, for we knew what he would do and the threat he posed to our continued security. We did not act because of probabilities, not possibilities. The probability was that further war would have resulted in greater tragedy. It was imaginable to have continued the war, to have kept our forces mobilized and turned them on our allies of convenience, the Soviet war machine. We gave it thought. I had the report written, though in those days we mostly used military intelligence to make decisions, not to make propaganda. We thought about it; I thought about it, but we did not strike against Stalin. To have done so would have done more harm than good, no matter how terrible his tyranny proved to be. Possibilities did not come into it.

Thatcher: I admire you, Winston.

Churchill: Admire yourself, dear lady. I made my choices as best I could, and see where I am now.

Blair: (to Churchill) I admire you too.

Churchill: I’d offer the same advice as proferred to Margaret, but I fear you have no need of it. You’re too full of self-admiration already.

Blair: Now, see, what I did was within the law… (interrupted)

Churchill: You remind me of that manipulating schemer, Gandhi. He knew the law. He was also a wizard who knew how to beguile people. When I compare you to that fakir of fakery, I don’t mean it as a compliment.

Thatcher: You shouldn’t be here, Winston. You saved democracy in World War II.

Churchill: I suppose I’ll find out why I’m here in due course. Perhaps I sent too many to their deaths, or perhaps too few. Perhaps it was the lives lost at Gallipoli, or refusing to turn on the Russians in order to save the Eastern Europeans at the end of the Second World War. Or perhaps it was returning Britain to the Gold Standard, and all the trouble that caused. Who can say. In this universe there’s a judgement wiser than that of men.

Thatcher: You shouldn’t be here, Winston. We all make mistakes. The General Strike, riots, political upheaval, the end of empire… you faced it all. A leader cannot afford to second-guess every decision. If you were brutal sometimes, it is because you had to be firm to be fair.

Churchill: I had to be firm to be fair? Perhaps. But it sounds like you’re justifying yourself more than you’re consoling me. When asked if we make mistakes, we assure that we do, for we are human after all. But when asked to identify a single mistake, our memory fades and not a one comes to mind.

Blair: I made mistakes. The former Yugoslavia for instance… (interrupted)

Thatcher: (To Blair) You would have made a tolerable leader of the Tory party. You’re greatest mistake was to join with Labour.

Churchill: Give the boy some credit. Leaders pick their parties, not the other way around. I was a rat more than once. The boy picked a side and it suited him - at least he stuck to it, unlike me. There’s no great harm in his choosing to sit opposite you. It shows he had the foresight to swim with the tide, not against it. And at least he deserves credit for never being a socialist.

Thatcher: Yes, at least you were never a socialist, were you Tony?

Tony: Look, I think we’re drifting off the point here a little, don’t you think? We should… (interrupted)

Churchill: (Lifts his cane, to point angrily at Blair) The point you say? What point would that be? I was battling with the House of Lords before you were born. I was introducing taxes to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor before it became fashionable. And what, in comparison, did you do? You turned the second chamber into a monstrosity of government lackeys, and the welfare state into a drain on every decent working fellow. The point is that we are here, and by God’s will we deserve to be. That is the only point that I can see, beyond this here point (waves cane) that I’m pointing at you.

Blair: Well, I don’t understand why I should be here. I was a good Christian all my life… (interrupted)

Thatcher: So was I. I was brought up a strict Methodist. We’re here because we failed, to some degree. Perhaps it was the impossibility of the decisions we faced that has led us to be here.

Churchill: I rather suspect that vanity was the deadly sin that pays for our lodging in this establishment. It’s vanity to think a man can rise himself above his fellows and be much better or wiser than the rest of them. A necessary vanity, perhaps, but vanity all the same.

Blair: Listen, we’re not tyrants. We were elected. I was elected to protect and serve the British people, by the British people. To do that, I realized that regime change was necessary and inevitable in Iraq if we wanted to protect… (interrupted)

Thatcher: We don’t have to listen to you. Please stop now. You’re making this intolerable.

(The room falls silent as Blair realizes the truth of this.)

Churchill: That’s the greatest torment the poor boy can imagine - to not be listened to. He has been listened to all his life, as was I. I think only you, Margaret, can understand what it was like to fight for the limelight.

Thatcher: I am a woman, but I never saw that as a serious impediment.

Blair: Nor should you, opportunity should be for all in equal measure… (interrupted)

Thatcher: You say that without irony, don’t you? And I thought you were only allowed to be Labour Party leader, only had the chance to be Primeminister, because you were a well-spoken, well-schooled white Englishman that the middle classes could warm too. That was the essence of your attraction, wasn’t it? As Primeminister, my government delivered social mobility. Your government eroded it. You talk about reducing social barriers yet you built them higher for all, and took advantage of them for yourself. It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for Gordon Brown.

Blair: I’m not inclined to take a lecture from you on how to reduce division in society. My point is that… (interrupted)

Churchill: (Points with his cane) And this, is my point!

Blair: (Resumes and talks over Churchill) There is a point and I intend to share it, even if you’re unwilling to hear me out. We’re politicians and we did what we thought best. I’ll plead my case and I’ll plead it to anyone who’ll listen. If you’re not listening, then fair enough, I’ll practice and you can talk to each other or sit in silence as you please. I can account for what I’ve done and that’s what I intend to do.

Churchill: There’s no need to give your account. You’re not surrounded by journalists any longer, except in so far as I was once counted an exponent of that profession. No, accounts are not needed here. To atone is what is needed, not to account.

Blair: (Getting angry) Look, I did nothing wrong.

Thatcher: (Grave) I did what I believe was right, but I still sent British troops to their graves. War is not a topic for frivolous equivocation.

Blair: (Gesticulating) We had to deal with this threat of WMD. Because of terrorism, the calculus of risk had changed immeasurably since the two of you were leaders. I believed it was beyond doubt that Saddam had continued to produce chemical and biological weapons. But suppose we put it the other way around. It’s really really important to understand the decision I took, and would take again, was that the primary consideration was not to take any risks with Saddam. This was a man who showed his willingness to use WMDs against his own people, when he gassed thousands of Kurds… (interrupted)

Churchill: In my time, I also ordered the use of poison gas against the Kurdish rebels. They were uncivilized and it proved to be effective if also cruel. (To Blair) I suppose that means you could have justified the overthrow of my regime, if it had suited you.

Thatcher: Please stop with the speech-making, both of you. I think I’d rather like to sit in quiet now.

Blair: I’ll not sit in quiet. (Looks upwards) He is listening to us, as always. He can hear me defend myself…

Thatcher: You’re not the only lawyer in this room. But that doesn’t mean you’re entitled to a judge or jury.

Blair: (Ignores Thatcher) The fact is, force is always an option. What changed after September 11 was that it was necessary — and there was no other way of dealing with this threat — for us to remove Saddam. (To Thatcher) You, of all people, should appreciate that, to stand up to terror and to tyrants. The primary consideration for me was to send an absolutely powerful, clear and unremitting message that, after September 11, if you were a regime engaged in WMD, you had to stop.

Churchill: Unless you’re regime is too powerful or too inconvenient to stop, like the Communists in Korea or the Jews in the Middle East. I think now you should stop. Margaret is right. We’ve had our opportunities to talk throughout our lives. Now may be the time to turn to quiet contemplation of what we did.

Blair: I take responsibility for what I’ve done. I have no regrets.

Thatcher: I’m not for turning back and retracing my steps. However, perhaps now might be a time for looking back and admitting a regret or two.

Churchill: I have many regrets, although I’m also prepared to admit that I did what I thought was right at the time and would doubtless do most, if not all of it again. That’s why I expect we’re here. For good or bad, we’re irredeemably human, and prone to err. I intend to ask for forgiveness. Even if I can’t divine my faults, I’m confident that they exist anyhow.

Thatcher: You must be sincere to ask for forgiveness.

Blair: (Shakes head) There’s no forgiveness that I seek. I’ll be judged by what I’ve done and the consequences, which were good. That’s good enough for me.

Churchill: Perhaps forgiveness is beyond us. We’re tools of the master, or of whatever forces that exist in his place and that we just imagine must take his form. We are made as well as we were intended to be, save for any defects in the exercise of our free will, for which only we can take the blame. For my faults, I’ll take my punishment however it’s administered. I served my short time on Earth, and filled it as best I could. That time I treated not as a gift, but as merely borrowed. If now I must serve as your fellow inmate, locked in this asylum of reflection, I’ll take that as my fit and proper punishment, and my just reward.