The Guardian Year: 2001
ed Ian Katz
304pp, Guardian Books, £14.99
It is not surprising that a compendium of articles reviewing 2001 should be top-heavy with those written in the aftermath of September 11. Some excellent pieces may have been dropped to ensure the attacks on America received appropriate attention, but this does not devalue the book. Ian Katz has created a thoroughly readable anthology which is also a collector's item; thoughts, feelings and analysis bound together to provide an album of a momentous year.
On that fateful day, I was having lunch with Philip Gould. "Isn't that what you New Labour people do every day?" you might ask. But this was a special day because, despite our friendship and professional tie, Philip and I had not really spoken since I resumed my backbench duties the previous January. His pager went off and he said, between mouthfuls, that the World Trade Centre had been attacked. We carried on talking, the horror not impacting on us. It was not until I returned to the office and sat glued to the television that the truth dawned, and I realised that politics would not be the same again. In fact, I felt more - that politics was worth living for again, as people would turn to politicians for explanations and solutions, and that those of us who made our living by thinking and acting on behalf of others would come into our own. It was a sense of responsibility that filled my mind.
I would be less than human if I had not turned first to the entry concerning my own tragicomic departure from government as a result of my failure to have precise and immediate recall of certain eminently forgettable events in 1998. I am not masochistic by nature, so I am sorry I read Patrick Wintour's valedictory piece on my career. It was was typical of its kind (unkind) and full of the usual orthodoxies. Every spin, I spun it; every falling-out, I caused it; every feud, I started it. Even my unusual desire to maintain a modicum of privacy in my very unprivate life was a blot on my copybook. If only history - and politics - were so simple (and not quite so unjust). But let's not get started on all that again.
The Guardian's circulation soared after September 11, which shows that despite the coming of the internet and 24-hour TV news, newspapers cannot be consigned to history. Nonetheless, its coverage did not please everyone. Among enthusiasts for the government's position, the paper's equivocation (after a decisive start) was perplexing, while for ardent opponents of the war, its middle-of-the-road position was a sellout. That is the story of the Guardian's life. For me, the truth was contained in the first paragraph of Martin Woollacott's column on September 17: "This is a dangerous moment in history. It would be foolish to allow differences about the best way to respond to a terrorist threat to degenerate into an ideological contest that can only make wise choices more difficult, and perhaps fragment popular support for the decisions our governments make."
At which point the ideological contest began. I remain convinced, or at least hopeful, that good will come out of it all. Politicians respond to experience. They learn and question. They acquire new habits. They need to, if "we're interested in picking up the pieces, doing better than before, taming the enmities that threaten to tear apart the world with a ferocity and ignorance that may be more pervasive than we have ever seen" (Hugo Young, October 9).
One particularly terrible blot on the international scene has been the Middle East. If the Guardian stands for anything, as The Guardian Year: 2001 demonstrates, it is to champion the underdog and to look at events from the other end of the telescope. The paper does so in its extensive coverage of the Middle East and the conditions in which Palestinians live. Suzanne Goldenberg's reports are always worth reading, because she is not a propagandist and can see everyone's failings and hypocrisies, including the corruption that blights the Palestinian leadership.
The occupation of the West Bank by Israel is, of course, a disaster for that country, as is its current "closure" policy, which has prevented pregnant Palestinian women getting through roadblocks to a safe delivery in hospital. Do you think Israel does not realise the price it pays for such actions? But, equally, can you imagine what it is like knowing where the suicide bombers are being trained and finding yourself held back by international pressure from doing anything about it? In urging Ariel Sharon to make bold gestures for peace, it should be remembered that Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon, following a spate of Hizbullah killings of Israeli soldiers occupying the south of that country, hugely boosted the credibility of that organisation and of Hamas, who are dedicated to eliminating Israel. Terror won its prize and Arafat's alternative of living side by side with Israel has been undermined ever since in many Palestinian eyes.
I cannot end this review without highlighting Jonathan Glancey's entirely justified paean to the Royal Festival Hall in "The house that we built". I had not realised that on its opening in 1951, a number of VIPs, including the Lord Mayor of London, missed His Majesty's declaration because they were stuck in a lift. They didn't scream and complain, as later VIPs did when security measures caused delays in getting to the opening of the Dome. But then, they were not newspaper editors.
