I blame the scapegoats (25 page)

Campaigners for improved prison conditions
have gained some unlikely new allies this month. The man who once roused
Tory-conferences by calling for young offenders to be locked up while awaiting
trial has teamed up with that longstanding ally of Britain's convicts, the
Daily
Mail,
to expose 'the shocking reality of the jail
system'.

Of course Jeffrey Archer cannot be paid for
having his prison diaries published in a national newspaper; indeed, he has had
his prison pay docked as punishment for naming other prisoners. Twenty pounds
it has cost him. That'll make him think twice next time. The estimated £300,000
payment for the diaries will be transferred later to

the
Worldwide Fund for the Assistance of the Former Prisoner, namely Jeffrey's bank
account.

Not
since the
Diary of Anne Frank
have
readers been so moved by the private thoughts of an innocent free spirit locked
away against his will. His transfer to the open prison this week was recounted
in the usual truthful yet inspired literary manner: 'Suddenly the black Maria
swerved off the mountain road and with a giant splashing noise we splashed into
an icy river. I kicked open the back doors of the prison van and dived into the
wet wet water. Swimming against the swirling current was not made easier by the
iron ball and chain around my ankle, but my years as Olympic Backstroke
Champion stood me in good stead and I dragged the panicking prison officers to
safety, stopping only to rescue a frightened lamb that had slipped off the
river bank. Overhead I noticed the famous Tamar Rail Bridge which I of course
designed when I was at Harvard. As I handed the shivering lamb back to the
grateful farmer, his hair turning grey from the ravages of Blair's countryside
policy, he remarked, "Ooh-arrr! You be that novelist fellah, I've read all
your books, ooh-arr! 'Tis not you who should be in prison - it be those Labour
politicians and journalists what stitched ye up." Our simple country folk
have such wisdom.'

So
much of what Archer has said about himself in the past has been fabrication
that it made me wonder if his prison diaries are a complete fiction as well.
Perhaps Archer never really went to jail? Maybe the whole thing is another
desperate bit of attention seeking by an experienced trickster used to pulling
the wool over the media's eyes.

Now
that he is safely installed in Hollesley Bay Open Prison, Archer will be able
to give an honest account of a less austere regime. He will have access to a
gym (or did they say access to 'Jim' - prison can do strange things to a man),
there's a library and playing fields, all set in a 1400-acre estate overlooking
the sea. The prison even has its own herd of cows, and one of the smarter
prisoners has already begun work on a spoiler book entitled
Jeffrey
Archer's Prison Dairy.
It is not clear
whether Hollesley Bay allows conjugal rights but, on the off-chance, a number
of prostitutes he's never met before have begun hanging around the gates in the
hope that he might wander out and just hand over £2000. Archer will even be
allowed home visits 'once he has satisfied the governor that he can be
trusted'. So that shouldn't take long.

It is unlikely, however, that he will be
permitted to do any more community work after the furore that surrounded his
trips out from Lincoln Gaol. On one occasion he was taken from the prison to a
cocktail party packed with Conservative MPs. One has to say - surely prison is
punishment enough?

When you read Archer's harrowing accounts of
life inside Belmarsh, the suffering goes beyond what any human being should be
expected to endure. Time drags inexorably slowly as you read, you feel
worthless and depressed with every passing paragraph, but the sentence seems to
drag on and on with no prospect of its being rewritten, while you reflect upon
the shame of having your friends and family know that you've been reading the
Daily
Mail.

But
whatever the paper intended by publishing Jeffrey Archer's prison diaries, the
accounts must have served as some sort of deterrent to Britain's would-be
criminals. Make no mistake; commit a serious offence and there's a very real
chance that you might find yourself sharing a cell with Jeffrey Archer.

26
October 2002

There
has never been an election like it. All the greatest people who have ever lived
in these islands competing for the title of the greatest ever Briton. In the
streets and council estates across the country, canvassers are knocking on
doors trying to persuade the electorate to vote for their preferred candidate.

'Hello, I'm calling about the Great Britons
election. I'm canvassing on behalf of Henry the Second - would you like a
leaflet about his triumph over Geoffrey of Nantes?'

'Er, we normally vote
for
Bohemian Rhapsody,
don't
we, dear?'

'Well, you can't
actually vote for a song, you see . . .'

'All right, put us
down for
Emmerdale
then.'

Meanwhile
on television, various commentators are urging us to vote for their Greatest
Briton. Last night millions of viewers watched Andrew Marr nominate Charles
Darwin. 'Hmmm,' he must have thought, 'should I choose Ernest Shackleton and
spend two weeks filming in the frozen Antarctic or should I opt for Darwin and
have the BBC fly me to a tropical paradise on the Equator just as the weather's
turning a bit nippy? You know, when I think about it, Darwin just seems a
greater figure compared to that bloke who went to the very, very cold place.
But my mind is open - if you don't want Darwin I could always spend a couple of
weeks discussing the inventor of the pedalo.'

It has to be said that some of the
people in the current Top 100 have a fairly dubious claim to the epithet
'Great'. At number 89 is Donald Campbell (driving boats too fast and scaring
all the ducks); number 17 is Michael Crawford (saying 'Oooh Betty, the cat's
done a whoopsie in my beret'); and at number 51 King Arthur, whose only
definite legacy is increased car-parking prices in Tintagel and inspiring the
Guinevere Gift Shoppe. It makes you question why other 'great' figures have
been left out. Where is Denis Howell, Minister for Sport in the Callaghan
government? Where is Bunty James, co-presenter of the long-running kids' TV
show
How?

Predictably
the radical vote is split among various factions. You would have thought that
Thomas Paine, Nye Bevan and Tony Benn could have sat down and agreed which of
them was going to represent the left, but no, they are all issuing poorly
produced leaflets denouncing each other as splitters and declaring themselves
to be the one true socialist candidate.

When it is all over, we will have an awards
ceremony to end them all. When the Great Britons idea was pitched to the BBC,
this was the star-studded show that finally clinched it. Cutaway shots of David
Lloyd George goosing Jane Austen, slight embarrassment after Cromwell runs Sir
Bob Geldof through with a sword, Lord Nelson struggling to hold his plate and
champagne glass at the same time, Sir Winston Churchill being asked to put out
his cigar, while Guy Fawkes is still stuck at the security desk. Generally
speaking, most TV awards are dished out to the celebrity who is prepared to
turn up on the night. Since many of the nominees have been dead for several
hundred years, this could prove a bit of a problem. 'Sadly, Lord Horatio Nelson
cannot be with us this evening as he was shot by a French sniper in 1805. But
here to collect the award on his behalf is Carol Smillie.' In fact the very act
of dying seems one of the best ways of getting yourself into the Top 100 -
hence the presence of Princess Diana, Freddie Mercury and George Harrison, with
Edwina Currie planning a strategically timed faked suicide in one last
desperate bid to make the list.

These votes tell us more about current
affairs than they do about British history. The only thing that this exercise
measures is the type of people who take part. While there is room for Enoch
Powell, there is not one black or Asian face in the whole Top 100. The fact
that Owain Glyndwr is way ahead of Robert the Bruce simply tells us that more
Welsh Nationalists are voting than Scots Nationalists. In fact, the whole
undertaking is an elaborate way of finding answers to questions that the
government didn't dare ask on last year's census forms. Every time an internet
vote comes through another piece of information is added to the Home Office
database.

'Mr N. Smith of
Brighton just voted for Boy George, sir.'

'Okay, put him down
as gay, then.'

And we've had another
vote for Boudicca.'

'Right, mark her as a
militant feminist.'

And another vote for Tony
Blair, sir.'

'Tell Alastair to
stop wasting our time.'

But
despite all the tactics and lobbying, I for one will be treating the exercise
with the serious historical consideration that it deserves. Irrespective of
fashion or prejudice, I shall vote for whoever I sincerely believe has made the
greatest contribution to the history of this country and its people. Oh, and
most of all, for whoever's got the best chance of keeping Maggie out of the Top
10.

2
November 2002

Jacques
Chirac lost his temper with Tony Blair this week, calling the Prime Minister
'rude' and cancelling the scheduled Anglo-French summit. All Tony had said was,
'So how did France get on in the World Cup?'* For a French president to call a
British leader 'rude' is a bit like us accusing the French of having warm beer.
One of the problems was that Tony Blair insisted that he got a B in his French
O-level and said he was perfectly capable of conducting the summit without a
translator. So the PM asked the French President in no uncertain terms 'Brother
Jacques, Brother Jacques - Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping?' Things went
from bad to worse when he added, 'Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?' Now
the diplomats and civil servants are working round the clock on the delicate
rebuilding of trust and mutual respect between our two governments, which
basically involves ringing their opposite numbers in France and slagging off
politicians.

The row erupted over
plans to reform the Common Agricultural Policy. The
Sun
editorial team wrestled for hours about the angle to take
on this story. Which way should they go? Explain the complex

The reigning world champions crashed out of the 2002 World
Cup without even scoring a single goal. When I commiserated with the owner of
my local French cafe, Monsieur Le Patron explained that it was hecause a lot of
the French team played in the English Premiership. Of course! It was our fault!
subsidies of the CAP that have underwritten European food
producers and undercut Third World farmers? Or just say that Chirac is a
typical garlic-smelling frog with terrible personal hygiene who'd beg the
plucky Brits to bail them out again as soon as there was another world war?

Anti-French
sentiment has never been far below the surface in this country. Way back in the
fourteenth century thousands of Englishmen were persuaded to join the English
army fighting the French. 'Darling, I'm going off to fight in the Hundred
Years' War . . .' 'When will you be back?' 'I dunno, it could be ages . . .'
(The Hundred Years' War actually lasted 116 years, but the last sixteen years
were spent arguing over which language the peace treaty should be in.) And to
this day, in terms of domestic popularity it does not damage Tony Blair to fall
out with Jacques Chirac. But this spat does not come at a good time for the
European project as a whole. Negotiations are currently under way regarding the
expansion of the EU to include countries such as Poland and Hungary, which is
widely supported by British cabinet ministers because it would mean their
au
pairs
could stay here legally. Meanwhile, one of
Chirac's predecessors has just published a draft constitution for the EU,
carefully worded to stir up the paranoia of the British Euro-sceptics. Among
his suggestions for the future of Europe is the election of a European
president. Whatever the merits of this idea, the prospect of lots of endless
godawful cartoons in the
Daily Telegraph
featuring
badly drawn Adolf Hitlers and Napoleons might make it more than we can bear.
These proposals represent something of a comeback for Valery Giscard d'Estaing,
who failed to retain the French presidency when it was realized that he had a
girl's name. Other controversial suggestions were that the European Union
consider adopting a new title (he thought the name 'France' had a certain ring
to it) and that Terry Wogan be prevented from hosting the Eurovision Song
Contest.