When Peter Hyman told Tony Blair he was leaving No 10 to work in an inner city school, the Prime Minister twice hailed his decision as "noble". And for once, a great many people agreed with him. It looked very noble. Unless, that is, you considered working in a school to be a worthwhile if singularly ill-paid career, rather than a cleansing public ritual for repentant spinners. Hyman says it was "a journey"; one which he has now described in a book called One Out of Ten, From Downing Street Vision to Classroom Reality.
For some reason this account of life in Islington Green comprehensive was completed at great speed, within a year of his arrival, which may account for one or two minor solecisms which are now troubling some of the school's prospective parents. It is not so much Hyman's decision to present his own pro-war speech for Blair as study material that alarms them, apparently, but a passage in which Hyman wonders if a pupil who has denounced George Bush as "a liar, a warmonger, a cowboy, an idiot, a cheat, a murderer, a fool, a redneck", should be complimented on his "imaginative use of adjectives". He also alludes to a book called The Tipping Point, by "Brian Gladwell". Later Hyman notes the prime minister's reluctance to become "just another Labour leader who the party are comfortable with" and records Blair's belief in his ability to "persuade eurosceptics to love the pound". Is it possible that he speaks English as a second language? He admires the late Donald Dewar because he "taught me the value of authenticity" and "didn't pander to the common denominator".
Maybe, in New Labour circles, this sort of thing passes for high style. In his book, Hyman stresses that "politics, to an extraordinary extent, is about words". He is proud to be the author of the most famous line in Blair's 1993 conference speech: "I've not got a reverse gear." He lingers over another "personal favourite, the forces of conservatism speech of 1999". Even after his journey through Islington Green, he can't bring himself to apologise for his best known rhetorical achievement, the "bog-standard comprehensive" line erroneously credited to his friend Alastair Campbell, who merely recited it.
"In public," Hyman confides, perhaps mindful of the value of authenticity, "Tony condemned the phrase as being a bit over the top, and would not use it himself. In private, he thought it gave us some definition. There would be no doubting what we meant now."
Whatever led Hyman to suspend policy-making for this trip through Islington Green, it was not a desire to atone for 10 years of plotting and phrase-making. On the contrary, his tender recollections about life in the New Labour policy unit, with its team of "hugely talented and hardworking people", contrast repeatedly with more restrained accounts of the companionship available at Islington Green. Apart from the headmaster, who obligingly makes this new classroom assistant a trusted part of his "senior management team", the teachers appear wary. Many oppose the war he has helped to justify. It probably doesn't help when Hyman starts working, behind their backs, on a "vision paper" for the conversion of the school into a city academy.
"Staff were now getting wind of our plans," Hyman artlessly reports, "and John, the NUT rep, was not happy". A meeting follows at which a young teacher criticises Blair ("with a sneer"), and John is reported by Hyman to have "purred with delight - although there must have been a little envy ... John's position as the most leftwing teacher in the school was facing a head-on challenge".
Unlike Hyman's former colleagues, who are treated to his limitless approval ("Tony Blair is the best political strategist of his generation ... master chess player ... logical, rational ... superb antennae ... world statesman ... moral zeal" etc, etc), the teachers, some of whom detest the great strategist and all his works, often fail to impress. One is overheard micturating. A particularly uppity one "sees himself as the intellectual of the team". Another is "a middle-aged woman" - a type which, as we know, presents a particular challenge to New Labour (with the exception, apparently, of Philip Gould, who has an "ability to be rude to a certain type of garrulous middle-aged woman".)
Altogether, you gather that the school, with all its women and filth, is a tremendous contrast to the bright, virile world of Downing Street's policy unit: "Here I am entering a world stained by deprivation, an air filled with expletives and trouble ... I am ignored in the staffroom." But he has not got a reverse gear. He goes on, like many a school visitor before him, to be shocked by rudeness, impressed by the command of successful teachers, inspired by individual pupils and intrigued by the slang. "'Your mum' is a big insult," he records, earnestly. "'Buff' means something great."
And yet, as Hyman points out, doing his bit to build bridges before the election, school teachers and visionaries do have some things in common. They're "part of the same tribe: the doers and the believers". He might have added that the visionaries have their own playground patois, all but incomprehensible to outsiders. "Best Practice" means something great. So do "Offer" and "Project". "Cynic" means something like "Your mum". Working so closely with Campbell, Hyman will also have been well prepared for his encounters with the school's bullies, their expletives and rough behaviour. Who could not be, after those golden afternoons in Gospel Oak "playing pool against myself on his miniature pool table" or tangling with him at another fixture, the policy team's outing to Chequers? Before which a note came round. "The prime minister has requested if (sic) everyone could please bring a pair of trainers (no boots) with them to have a game of football tomorrow." It was a game, Hyman says, at which "the prime minister's fast and furious activity left us all standing". Illuminating as this is, you can't help feeling that it would take a mightier pen, and perhaps a fresher eye than Hyman's, to do justice to the full pathos of the scene. If only teachers, too, could be noble, and go on journeys.
The secrets of Chequers
The newly released list of guests officially entertained at Chequers between 1997 and 2001 is a testament to the sublime discretion of the British dinner guest. Or if not, it certainly illustrates the extreme care with which the Blairs dispense hospitality. Or the amazingly high esteem in which they are held by their guests. Unless Cherie makes them sign nanny-style eternal secrecy agreements.
Although one would not expect any gossip to leak from the faithful Falconers, abject Birts or devoted Milibands - virtual retainers who owe their very political existence to the Blairs - the list still features enough lushes, bigmouths and phoneys to have prompted the spilling of a few crumbs of gossip. But nothing doing. We don't even know if the food is any good. It seems an excessively showy, very nearly butler-ish display of reticence on everyone's part. Would it damage national security for us to hear what the bedrooms look like? Or discover where Mrs Blair likes to hide when she plays sardines?
Perhaps we could persuade - to choose a name at random - Petrina Montrose to tell us if Chequers is worth a detour. One of several mystery names to appear, she is listed only as "friend of Heather Mills", having been invited, presumably, before the dazzling landmine campaigner (and friend of the Blairs) met Paul McCartney. Since when, her only notable appearance seems to have been on Channel 4's The Real Heather Mills, talking about what Heather does at parties. If nobody speaks up the Blairs will have succeeded where the Queen Mother, who never consciously invited a non-courtier, could not. Which hardly seems right.
