A leap in the dark
The thing about working in news is that you almost never have the time or, frankly, the inclination to review what you said and judge whether it has stood the test of time.
For the past few weeks, however, I’ve done just that – re-living the five days that led to the creation of Britain’s first coalition government in 65 years.
Happily I have not come across any gross inaccuracies but am struck by my failure – shared by many – to join the dots. In particular, I wish I’d listened more to two Liberal Democrats who told me during the election that they could see David Cameron doing a post-election deal.
Neil Sherlock, an adviser to this and many previous Lib Dem leaders, rang to remind me of what the Tory leader had said in a Radio 4 documentary I had made about Disraeli. Cameron had praised Dizzy for outmanoeuvring Gladstone on the issue of political reform and quoted a historian who said that the former Tory PM had “taken a leap in the dark and then leapt again”. Neil’s view was that anyone who could appreciate Disraeli’s bold risk-taking was capable of replicating it.
Chris Huhne told me and his party that Cameron was the only Napoleonic leader left in Europe. In other words, whatever the Tory leader said became Tory policy.
Both were proved right.
There were a lot of reasons why Cameron was in the driving seat after polling day – his party had the most votes and seats; the Lib Dems had promised to respect this “mandate” in negotiations (they didn’t have to, since in other parts of the world it’s not uncommon for the second and third parties to form a government); Labour had had 13 years in office and three terms; and, of course, Gordon Brown was unpopular.
However, the personalities of the two leaders were vital to what happened in those five days. David Cameron told me for a programme on the making of the coalition, which is broadcast tonight, that he woke up on Friday morning after a few hours of sleep and decided that a coalition was right for Britain. The truth is, I believe, a little more complex. Cameron sensed that he was unlikely to secure a majority, feared the consequences for him and his modernising project of failing and had talked with his closest allies about a coalition well before polling day.
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In stark contrast, Gordon Brown had not prepared a policy offer for the Lib Dems, nor got the backing of his Cabinet, nor developed a relationship with Nick Clegg. This, despite the fact that he must have known that a Lib/Lab deal was likely to be his best hope of political survival. As so often with Brown this was not a failure to see ahead. He had, after all, proposed radical political reform, but he’d done it so late in his time in Downing Street that it wasn’t taken seriously.
Instead of building a relationship with the man with whom he might have to share power, Gordon Brown relied instead on his contacts with former Lib Dem leaders – Charles Kennedy, Paddy Ashdown and Menzies Campbell – and Vince Cable. Cable, who has known and liked Brown for three decades, was a regular pre-election visitor to Number 10. There were even hints of a ministerial job for him. Brown ignored the advice of Cable and all his Lib Dem friends to find a way to get on with Clegg. When I put it to Peter Mandelson that Clegg found Brown impossible, the Prince of Darkness replied with a wry grin that “No… he’d found him Gordon-ish”.
There was another factor beyond the personal – the economic context on that post-election weekend. The crisis talks over how to prevent the Greek debt crisis spreading contagion throughout the eurozone were little reported in Britain, but officials in the Treasury and the Bank of England were focused on little else. Their fear was what one official describes as a “perfect storm” if the EU failed to agree a bail-out plan and Britain failed to produce a stable government by the time the markets opened on the Monday morning after the election.
When negotiators from the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats came to the Cabinet Office for their first meeting, the Cabinet Secretary left them in no doubt what was expected of them. “My advice to them,” Sir Gus O’Donnell tells the programme, “[was] that pace was important but that also the more comprehensive the agreement the better.” If things had gone wrong, he says, “the markets would really have made us pay a price on the Monday morning by selling our debt and that would have been a real problem for the country.”
Labour figures insist that all the arguments used by the Lib Dems – the Parliamentary arithmetic, the market warnings, the prime minister being “Gordon-ish” – are mere alibis to cover the fact that they made a choice to get into bed with the Conservative rather than Labour.
What is striking reviewing those five days is how each of those reasons or alibis – take your pick – could be seen in advance. It was always likely that the Tories would be the largest party after the election. It was always evident that the Lib Dems were more hawkish on the deficit than Labour: Nick Clegg was the first to talk of “savage cuts”; Vince Cable was the first to spell out how they might be made; Chris Huhne used to work for a credit rating agency; David Laws is a former merchant banker. And it always evident that Nick Clegg found Gordon Brown impossible to deal with.
If only I’d listened to more to those two Lib Dems, I would also have predicted David Cameron’s boldness – Labour’s Andrew Adonis calls it his “strategic brilliance” – and the Tory leader’s capacity to get pretty much anything past his party.
Note to self: Must try harder…
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Update, 10:54, 29 July: Those who think I’ve been too hard on Gordon Brown will be interested in Anthony Seldon’s account in today’s Independent of how he played those five days in May.
He reports what Brown would have said if he’d agreed to be interviewed for tonight’s documentary – namely that he was always willing to stand aside to enable a coalition with the Lib Dems after a referendum on full scale political reform – PR and an elected Lords – had been held; that he signalled a willingness to talk about his future in his first phone call with Clegg and that he was explicit about it in their first meeting.
I’ve no doubt that Brown was sincere in his efforts to build a coalition and that he was not helped by colleagues who thought Labour should accept defeat – ranging from Alistair Darling to Tony Blair.
The problem was that it was too late. The Lib Dems were deeply suspicious of Brown – blaming him for resisting a deal between Blair and Ashdown in the 90s, for trying to recruit Paddy Ashdown to the Cabinet in 2007 without offering the Lib Dems anything in return and for only backing AV in the dying weeks of 13 years of New Labour rule. His relationship with Clegg was poor. The Labour Party had moved on.
Once again Brown saw what needed to be done but simply could not do it.
Five Days that Changed Britain is on BBC Two tonight at 2100 BST.
FTSE 100 falls for fourth day in a row
Lonmin was one of the worst performers as the blue-chip index fell for a
fourth day in a row.
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City of London-square mile gardens
Film for display at the Guildhall showing the cross section of open spaces managed by The City of London within the square mile
Duration : 0:5:23
Linklaters defends Lehman role
Report for United States Bankruptcy Court says City law firm approved off balance sheet transactions that disguised true state of Lehman Brothers’ finances
Linklaters, one of London’s premier law firms, is battling to defend its reputation after a US report into the failure of Lehman Brothers showed it approved controversial deals that shifted billions of dollars of debt off the balance sheet in the years before the bank collapsed.
The hard-hitting report found that the crucial deals, which were also sanctioned by Lehman’s auditors, Ernst & Young, were described as “window dressing” by bank staff and masked the precarious state of its finances while it was under scrutiny from regulators and investors.
Linklaters is expected to come under intense pressure to reveal the full extent of its dealings with Lehman in the run-up to the bank’s crash in September 2008. The firm is one of the “magic circle” of solicitors operating in the City, which in recent years have expanded rapidly to compete with US rivals.
The impact of the bank’s crash has been described as incalculable by some economists after governments around the world were forced to implement trillion-pound bailouts for their own banks caught up in the disaster. Investors are preparing lawsuits against the bank and are expected to turn their fire on lawyers and auditors advising it.
The report, for the United States Bankruptcy Court by examiner Anton Valukas, claims Lehman booked fund transfers as sales and failed to disclose them in regulatory filings in the US. Valukas alleges that Lehman turned to Linklaters after New York law firms said that they were unable to approve the deals under US law.
It was common practice to use so-called “Repo 105″ agreements at Lehman to sell and buy back funds, but their frequent adoption in the two years before its collapse amounted to balance sheet manipulation, the report said.
Linklaters dismissed suggestions that it played a central role in disguising Lehman’s mounting debt pile. A spokesman confirmed that the firm gave opinions on several transactions, but said it was not aware of any “facts or circumstances that would justify any criticism”.
He also pointed out: “The examiner, who did not contact the firm during his investigations, does not criticise those opinions or say or suggest that they were wrong or improper.”
Valukas said that the part played by auditors Ernst & Young was also crucial to hiding the fund transfers, and amounted to professional negligence.
UK regulators came under scrutiny in the report for their role during Lehman’s collapse. While Hector Sants, the Financial Services Authority chief executive, refused to give evidence directly to the US investigator, he published written evidence that showed a series of transatlantic telephone calls during which the US authorities begged the UK to help facilitate a possible takeover by Barclays.
The FSA’s evidence claims that Christopher Cox, then chairman of the US regulator the securities and exchange commission, was still lobbying the FSA at 3pm on Sunday 14 September – hours before Lehman called in administrators. Cox wanted the FSA to waive rules that required Barclays to hold a shareholder vote before the deal could take place.
Barclays later bought Lehman’s US businesses from the administrator.
Gaga sends the internet agog
Nine-minute duet with Beyonce already being touted by some as successor to Michael Jackson’s Thriller
With some grunts, G-strings, heavy product placement and an enormous amount of hype, the 21st century’s take on feminism and social commentary arrived this week with the video to Lady Gaga and Beyonce’s duet, Telephone. Within 12 hours of the video being released on the internet it had half a million hits and nearly as many blogs eagerly dissecting the possible meanings behind the nine-minute video.
Already being touted by some as the successor to Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Telephone continues Gaga’s tradition of elevating her songs with clever videos. This time she and director Jonas Akerlund have created a melange of Russ Meyers, Quentin Tarantino, Thelma and Louise and the brief incarceration of Paris Hilton to make a film about lesbian murderers, set to the lyrics of a woman complaining about people phoning her in a nightclub.
While Beyonce is clearly the more talented, her brand of sexiness looks dated next to Gaga. Bloggers have been decoding the meaning behind the sunglasses made of cigarettes, but one might just as well try to decipher the dress Gaga once wore made of Kermit the Frogs: she does it because it’s funny.
Gaga, never averse to ascribing depths to her work where others might see shallows, has claimed that the video’s meaning came from “the idea that America is full of young people that are inundated with information and technology”. Her intention, accordingly, was to “turn it into something that was more of a commentary on the kind of country that we are”.
For
Forget outrage, just enjoy it
Some taboos are still alive and kicking. Lady Gaga and Beyonce’s prison “lezz-ploitation” video has caused outrage, featuring as it does butch dykes, chicks with dicks, horny female prison wardens perusing lesbian dating sites – oh, and a bit of mass murder.
Early in the video there is a scene in the prison yard featuring a lesbian snog between a butch lesbian in leather and Lady Gaga, who is wearing a pair of sunglasses made from burning cigarettes. It’s hard to know what to be outraged about first. The answer is, nothing – the answer is just enjoy it.
It’s a cross between Tenko, Prisoner Cell Block H, a ghetto-girl Malory Towers and Thelma and Louise, as re-imagined by David Lachapelle and Betty Paige, only this time our heroines don’t have to die. Instead, they drive into the sunset in Beyonce’s “pussymobile” after Beyonce has turned to her (we assume) lover and said: “You’ve been a very, very bad girl, Gaga.”
Women in prison exploitation movies took off in the 1950s thanks to the influence of pulp magazines with films such as Caged and So Young So Bad. But unlike them, there are no sadistic male guards in this one. While there are obligatory scenes such as the strip search (“I told you she didn’t have a dick,” says one guard) and the cat fights with the queen bee gang leader, the chicks are all doing it for themselves.
It’s a silly, sexy, funny film for a song about the nightmare of having a mobile phone, ridden with product placement from the phone company logo on Gaga’s screen to the cans of Diet Coke rollers in her locks, and it feels very zeitgeisty – a big, female power fantasy. These aren’t just tough but hot tough chicks who can take care of themselves – like Trudy Chacon in Avatar, the cute Latina helicopter pilot, who’s the sort of person you want looking after you if you find yourself in lost in a mad sci-fi jungle.
In terms of “all girls together” videos, it reminded me of Britney Spears’ One More Time, only Lady Gaga has moved beyond the lame message of turning yourself into a Lolita schoolgirl, and has instead decided to turn the world completely lesbian – and good on her and her tattooed sisters in their studded leather bikinis, roaming the world avenging themselves on bad people.
Stephanie Theobold
Against
The same old boring sexism
Say what you like about Lady Gaga – everyone else does – but when it comes to colour and controversy she certainly delivers. She’s appeared in hats shaped like lobsters, shoes resembling armadillos, dancing in a white latex catsuit in her Bad Romance video. She’s regularly seen wandering around with a small china teacup and saucer in hand, apropros of nothing (this last affectation gets no less irritating).
What we get now is a cartoon-ish explosion of sex and violence. It starts with Gaga being taken into a women’s prison, led past bra-clad, tattoo-covered inmates, who are writhing against the doors to their cells – and occasionally pausing (as you do) to lick the bars. Gaga is wearing a low-cut outfit, and as she gets thrown into her cell, she’s stripped by the guards, revealing just a pair of fishnets and black plasters over her nipples.
When the cell door closes, she throws herself against it, and although her pubis is pixelated, the screen grab enables her to rebuke those tired old rumours of hermaphroditism. “I told you she didn’t have a dick,” says one guard. “Too bad,” says the other.
There follow lesbian kisses, a mass poisoning, and a double act with Beyonce – the two drive off in a lurid vehicle nicknamed the “pussy wagon”. Gaga has apparently said that the video was inspired by Quentin Tarantino’s work, but the references reach further back to the 1960s exploitation flicks of Roger Corman and Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!.
These references coat the whole video in a slick film of irony, and make the whole enterprise seem occasionally funny and always ridiculous. But also, strangely, a little bit dull. Because if there’s one thing that we’ve seen a thousand times over the past few decades, it’s old-style sexism dressed up as new-style irony. Does the fact that Gaga seems to be winking knowingly at the camera as she dances in a bikini make the vision any less predictable, any less boring, any less reminiscent of sexist video after sexist video that you’ve seen in the past few years? Nope.
It’s a disappointment from someone who seems to be popping with so many ideas. Gaga will do something great, I’m sure. But this isn’t it.
Kira Cochrane
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