A Fortunate Life (64 page)

In the next few days it became clear that delaying was not an option, and Charles stood down as Lib Dem Leader very soon afterwards. On the day of Charles’s resignation, I spoke to Nick Clegg and told him that, if he stood, he would have my backing, adding that this was the one time in his life that he could lose without losing; he was young enough not to win without that damaging him, and, even if he lost, he would still have succeeded in marking the card, showing that he was ambitious for the job in the future. If he did not stand, however, then I would back Ming. Nick decided not to stand, for reasons I fully understood and which, with the benefit of hindsight, I think were probably right. (Though I do wonder whether, if he had stood, he might not have won – for in the end the contest between Ming and his opponent Chris Huhne was a very close one.)

After my conversation with Nick I rang Ming and offered him my support if he decided to stand, but warned that, for the reasons given above, I was not at all sure this was the best solution for the Party, and that it would be neither easy nor fun for him either.

As the end of my mandate in Bosnia approached, the international community made a determined attempt to persuade me to stay on (they
had already persuaded me to extend my time in Bosnia twice, from two years to nearly four). By now, however, Jane was increasingly keen to get home, and I was certain that my effectiveness was decreasing, that I had done my best work and that it was time to hand over to someone else. But our international masters delayed and delayed about finding a replacement, so prolonging the final date for our departure. Once again, Jane’s emails illustrate our feelings as we drew closer to our departure date:

And so, in deep snow on a bitterly cold day at the end of January 2006, after nearly four years in Bosnia, Jane and I flew out of Sarajevo airport on our way home. Jane cried as we left, and I felt very miserable. But I could not complain. I had been exceptionally lucky to have done such a fascinating job, in which every decision I took had a direct and often immediate effect on people’s lives. I felt regret at leaving, of course. But I also felt exceptionally privileged to have been involved, for a few years, in the life and future of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which I am confident, despite recent setbacks, will one day be a member of the European Union and prized as one of its little jewels.

B
LAISE
P
ASCAL
, contemplating space, wrote:
Le silence éternel de ces
 
espaces infinis m’effraie
– the eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me. I felt much the same about the prospect of retirement. But, once again, I needn’t have worried, for it turned out there was plenty to keep me busy.

Before we left Bosnia, Jane and I had teamed up with our children, Kate and Simon, to buy a small chalet in the Savoie region of France, to which we went for a few weeks’ skiing holiday straight after leaving Sarajevo. It had always been a lifetime’s ambition to have a chalet in the Alps, and this one has given us huge pleasure when, as a family, we gather with our grandchildren, twice in the winter for skiing and once in August to walk in the beautiful Beaufort region close to Mont Blanc.

As soon as we got back to Britain, I started on my next book,
Swords
and Ploughshares: Bringing Peace to the 21st Century
.
*
By now it was plain that the US and Britain had made a number of wholly unnecessary mistakes in the post-conflict reconstruction phase in Iraq. Afghanistan was already looking increasingly difficult, too. I became (and remain) concerned that the pain of burnt fingers in both these places may lead the West to conclude that we cannot make a success of intervention and should never try it again. In fact, the lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan should not be ‘never again intervene’, but ‘never again do it like this’.

The history of our efforts in both countries has been one of
hubris
, nemesis and above all amnesia.
Swords and Ploughshares
was an attempt to examine past interventions and from them to identify the lessons which, if applied in future, would make it more likely we would succeed, rather than more likely we would fail. I started writing articles again, too, particularly on Iraq and Afghanistan, and was asked to present a two-hour television documentary on Jerusalem for Channel Four, learning in the process some of the skills of interviewing, rather than being interviewed.

In the spring of 2007 Peter Hain, then the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, asked me if I would chair a small group of people
drawn from across the sectarian divide, to see if we could find a long-term solution to the vexed and still explosive issue of parading in Northern Ireland. I agreed, but stipulated that the group I would work with should be selected from people who had real influence on the streets, rather than from among the great and the good. One of those chosen to represent the nationalist viewpoint in our talks was a committed republican activist in the Ardoyne area of Belfast when I was a soldier there in 1960. Walking together through the corridors of Stormont, as our work drew towards its conclusion last autumn, he joked ‘I bet you never imagined that one day you would be walking through here with a member of Sinn Fein!’ I replied ‘You are right. If I had seen you here thirty years ago, I would have arrested you on the spot.’ ‘Ay,’ he replied, laughing, ‘I suppose I had better not mention what I would have done to you, if I had seen you first!’ My Sinn Fein colleague remains what he always has been, a determined and intelligent advocate for those he represents. But now, along with all the others in our working group from across the Northern Ireland sectarian divide who remain equally committed to their separate viewpoints, we have all found the way to put our different pasts behind us and, through dialogue and compromise rather than the gun, try to build a new future for Northern Ireland.

At the start of our work I went to see Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness. Though Mr McGuinness, too, was previously active in the IRA, he was now, in partnership with Ian Paisley, heading the Stormont government in Northern Ireland as an effective Deputy First Minister. He started our conversation with the words, ‘You know, Mr Ashdown, my people don’t trust you, because you were a British soldier.’ I replied, ‘We were both army men, Mr McGuinness. But that doesn’t stop us trying to build the future.’ He smiled and wished me good luck.

Right from the start we all agreed that, if we were to succeed in finding a solution to the issue of sectarian parading in Northern Ireland, then what we produced would have to be home-grown, rather than imported in my back pocket from London. So I have acted far more as a convener than as a traditional chairman, leaving both sides to reach their own compromises and agreements. They have done astonishing work, showing real leadership on this very difficult issue, which still retains the capacity to destroy Northern Ireland’s miraculous but still fragile progress towards peace. As a result we have made real progress and a workable solution to the issue of parading, based on Northern Ireland’s democratic institutions, is within reach. At the
time of writing our work, which has been going on for a year, hopefully is drawing towards its conclusion. If we succeed, it will, I hope, make a contribution to long-term peace in the land of my upbringing that I will have been privileged to be associated with. But credit for any success must lie wholly with my colleagues from Northern Ireland, whose courage and willingness to compromise has, I believe, laid the foundations of something really important to the future life of Northern Ireland.

So, one way or the other, I found myself as busy as I needed to be and very satisfied with my life. It was therefore a considerable and not wholly welcome surprise to arrive back from a weekend in Somerset on 18 June 2007 to find in my House of Lords mailbox a small pink telephone message slip informing me that the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s private office had telephoned and asking me to return the call as soon as I got in.

When I got through to Gordon Brown’s Secretary she said that the Chancellor, who was within days of taking over as Prime Minister,
*
had asked if I would go and see him as soon as was convenient. I said I could make lunchtime on Wednesday, and she confirmed that this would be suitable for him too.

I was, of course, extremely curious about this summons, which set off loud alarm bells in my head. There had been much talk in the Press over the previous few days that Gordon Brown had been impressed with the success of the newly elected French President, Nicholas Sarkozy, in attracting outsiders and even members of opposition parties into his Government, and intended to emulate him in putting together a ‘Government of all the talents’.

I immediately put in a call to my own Leader, Ming Campbell, told him about the message and asked if he knew what it was about. He said he did and asked me to come up to his office immediately. When I arrived there were others in the office, but he quickly shooed them out and called in my old friend Archy Kirkwood, now his closest adviser.

It immediately became apparent that Mr Brown had, the day before, approached Ming about Lib Dems, including Anthony Lester, Shirley Williams, Alex Carlile and Julia Neuberger, assisting the Government with discrete tasks, such as heading Government Commissions. I said there could be no objections to this kind of thing; members of opposition
parties had often carried out such roles for the government of the day – indeed I was fulfilling just such a task in Northern Ireland. But Ming revealed that he had also been discussing something much more ambitious – Lib Dems actually taking up roles in the Government itself, as I had planned with Blair, in 1997. One of the matters which had been discussed was that I should join Gordon Brown’s Cabinet as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. I asked him whether there had been any discussion about an agreed policy programme, including Proportional Representation (PR). For, without this, what Brown was offering us was a deadly suicide pill that would diminish our ability to oppose the Government when we needed to and could seriously damage us in the polls. Ming said there had been no policy discussions. The plan under consideration was, as I understood it, simply to add Lib Dems to the Government, starting with me.

I told him I was very opposed to this. I would be completely isolated, and the Party would be gravely weakened. ‘Ming this is madness from your point of view – and mine – but most of all it is madness from the point of view of the Party. How long have you been pursuing this, and are you in detailed negotiations with them?’
*

He replied that they had been pursuing it over the last couple of days, with Archy setting up meetings between Ming and the Prime Minister through Alistair Darling, who was therefore also in the loop. I repeated that I thought this was deeply dangerous to him and to the Party.

‘This simply will not work. How do I observe collective responsibility in Cabinet when Brown’s government mounts – as I am sure they will – a further attack on our civil liberties by extending the period a suspect can be held without being charged? I could not support that! But in Cabinet I would have to, or at least stay silent. If you put this forward to the Party they will reject it, and your leadership will be destroyed.’

I then asked Ming whether or not I should in fact see Gordon Brown under the circumstances. Had he told Ming about asking to see me on a one-to-one basis? Both Ming and Archy confirmed that he hadn’t. So, I continued, his approach to me had evidently been made behind Ming’s back? Surely I should not go ahead with this? Ming thought, however, that it was worth continuing with the meeting with the Chancellor because we did not know what exactly Mr Brown wanted to offer. It might still be something outside Government of the sort they had also discussed – in which case it would be easier to accept.

On Wednesday morning the news of the secret Campbell/Brown talks leaked in the Press with a front-page story in the
Guardian
. In an early-morning radio interview responding to the
Guardian
story Ming made it clear that there could be no question of Lib Dems serving in Brown’s cabinet, although he had no objection to individuals assisting the Government in other capacities, as members of the opposition had always done with past governments. The Labour Press operation keeps an eagle eye on all the Press and broadcasts, so I therefore presumed that the future Prime Minister’s people would be bound to have heard Ming’s interview and informed Brown that any possibility of having Lib Dems actually in the Government was now closed off.

I rang Gordon Brown’s office in mid-morning expecting to be told that the meeting was off – but was informed, somewhat to my surprise, that it was still on. I naturally presumed that what this meant was that the proposition the Chancellor was going to discuss with me was not a Cabinet post, but some other task outside government, such as the one I was already doing in Northern Ireland.

When I arrived in his outer office in the Treasury at 2 p.m., the Chancellor came out to meet me, led me into private office, where the two of us, without advisers present, exchanged a few pleasantries and then got pretty swiftly down to business. He said he wanted to reach beyond the confines of the Labour Party in forming his new Government and wanted to know if I would be interested in joining his Cabinet as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland?

I was, to be honest, somewhat taken aback.

Had he discussed this with Ming? He said he had. Did Ming know he was putting this proposition to me today? He confirmed that he didn’t.

‘Well in these matters, Gordon, I take orders from my boss, and that is Ming. If he asked me to do this I would consider it. But I want you to know that I would say to him that I think it is nonsense. How can I be in your Cabinet and subject to collective responsibility, when you are about to do further terrible damage to our civil liberties to which I and my party are totally opposed? If I were in your Cabinet I would be subject to collective discipline and could not oppose this, could I?’

‘Well, could you stay silent?’ he asked. I replied that, on issues such as this, I most certainly could not. Moreover, if I was in his Cabinet, this would also greatly diminish my party’s capacity to oppose his Government when it became necessary to do so. The Lib Dems would, I continued, thus be reduced as an opposition, and I would be trapped as
an isolated individual in a Cabinet in which the majority would always be against me on many of the key issues which I, as a Lib Dem, felt strongly about. ‘Are you sure that this is not what you wanted: to emasculate the Lib Dems, rather than forming a partnership with them?’

He strongly denied this, adding that he thought that somehow, as a peer and dealing with the slightly separated issue of Northern Ireland, I could be excused the disciplines of being a member of the Lib Dems so that I could support his Government. This would, he claimed, send a really important signal about the new politics and about the possibility of a relationship between Labour and the Lib Dems in the future. ‘Bernard Kouchner
*
accepted just such a proposition to join the French Government. Why can’t you do the same for ours?’, he finished.

I replied. ‘I am not Kouchner. I am sorry, but I am just not prepared to be locked in a Lib Dem garden shed in the grounds of your Labour mansion. I believe in partnership politics, but it has to based on policy agreements, not disagreements – on things we both believe in, not just bums on cabinet seats. That is what Tony and I were trying to put together in 1997 – a partnership of principle based on a solid programme for a coalition. This is no such thing. Ten years ago, in 1997, was the right time to do this, and we had the right basis for it. If you really believe in this kind of Government why did you oppose it then?’