Political diaries can be a damn good read — and they can also deepen our understanding of how power works. How nice by now to have had an insider’s account of the Mandela administration, or Mbeki’s. What a pity that someone like Pallo Jordan or Kader Asmal has not mustered the energy to produce a political memoir that sheds light on the choices made in the early years of democracy.
One of the many lessons I learnt in researching my book, Anatomy of South Africa, was that invariably even the most straightforward Cabinet conversation could be perceived in wildly different ways by those who were present.
As someone once pointed out, there is no truth, only truths. But even one version would be helpful.
Alastair Campbell was Tony Blair’s spin doctor and head of strategy in Downing Street for much of Blair’s time as prime minister. His 700-page diary has just been published in the United Kingdom. Its vanity and hubris are as nauseating as the book is delicious.
The book also has a democratic value because it reveals how much power one unelected political adviser had. Campbell represented the UK government on occasions when he should not have, evading the in-built lines of accountability that are essential, and he and Blair were far too close for their own or the government’s good.
Is this a common problem? What about the Mbeki presidency? Certainly Mojanku Gumbi does the same as Campbell did: despite being an unelected political and legal adviser she often represents South Africa in negotiations with other states. Not so long ago she was secretly in Harare, meeting with Zanu-PF leaders.
An insider account from, say, Bheki Khumalo — Mbeki’s former spokesperson — would be useful. But apart from the fact that he is clearly fast-tracking back into front-line politics, Khumalo is far too discrete and loyal, and also mindful of the downsides.
As former old-Labour MP Roy Hattersley argues: ”Keeping a political diary of this sort is, by its nature, a disreputable activity. It is a conscious betrayal of confidences, which diarists invariably try to justify with the insistence that they wanted to correct misconceptions, tell the true story or contribute to the greater understanding of how government works.”
Proximity is the essential commodity that is being traded. Campbell had proximity with knobs on. In one scene he consults with Blair while he is in the bath; in another, he walks in to find the prime minister ”standing stark naked reading the [Daily] Mail”.
All other things being equal, it is hard to conceive of Mbeki affording Gumbi a similar opportunity.
Once, Campbell reveals, as Clare Short — one of only two Cabinet ministers to resign over Iraq — railed on and on during a Cabinet meeting, Campbell passed a note to Blair reminding him that former Romanian dictator Ceausescu had once shot his own health minister and asking if Blair would like him to arrange the same fate for Short. ”Yes” came the scribbled reply.
It is hard to imagine Joel NetÂÂshitenze, the head of Mbeki’s kitchen cabinet and one of the most influential people in South Africa, making the same suggestion in relation Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. And not because in Cabinet she hardly says a word anyway, but rather because there is greater dignity and decorum in the relationship between Mbeki and his most senior advisers.
Perhaps there is too much distance. Getting the balance right is clearly not an easy thing to achieve.
While Hattersley would concede that Campbell has ”certainly provided a vivid picture of the Blair administration”, he would retort that what he has revealed ”can only diminish public esteem for the trade of politics”.
The problem with this line of argument is that it is not a very long hop away from suggesting that the majesty of democratic government is best protected by keeping its operations secret from the public.
Many people will tend to think that life at the top of government will be all composure and calm calculation, a sophisticated machine smoothly delivering decisions that trickle down through an erratic public service.
In fact, whether it is Pretoria, London or Washington DC, life at the top is a combination of clamour, chaos and confusion. It just looks grander. Indeed, it is grander and the cock-ups look worse because they are worse, given the power and importance of the decisions being reached.
Political diaries such as Campbell’s — and the no less self-serving and vivid memoir of the first Clinton White House by George Stephanopolous — help remind us that it is precisely because the occupants of the highest office are merely human beings, with all the manifest failings of the species, that they can so easily become actors in their own neurotic soap operas.