It seems that Jonathan Aitken is one of those public figures to whom “out of
sight and out of mind” will never be applied. Having suffered what he rather
thrillingly summarised as “the multiple dramas of defeat, disgrace, divorce,
bankruptcy and jail”, the former Tory minister is now back in the limelight,
leading a study on prison reform for the Centre for Social Justice, the
think tank run by Iain Duncan Smith.
On one level it’s a rather daring appointment. Who better to advise on penal
reform but the politician with the stellar career who lost it all and ended
up in the utterly improbable position of doing porridge at Belmarsh? Simply
in terms of publicising the arrival of the study, it’s a masterstroke.
Aitken was always one of those whose aura far exceeded the narrow confines of
the Westminster village. Tall, patrician and at 65 still remarkably dashing,
his charms in the debating chamber were heightened by barely concealed
rumours of a devastating prowess in the bedchamber. The surprising arrival
of Petrina, an 18-year-old daughter and half-sibling to his three legitimate
children, did nothing to diminish them. Even the disastrous 1999 libel
action against The Guardian and World in Action was glamorous and exotic,
involving as it did a hedonistic mix of the Paris Ritz, the Saudi
aristocracy and the low murmur of sexual commerce.
Aitken’s rub with British lowlife after an 18-month sentence for perjury (he
actually served seven months) has, if anything, enhanced the brand. Just
when other men are reaching for their bus pass, here is Aitken, lounging in
an immaculate suit, the darling of the after-dinner speech circuit once
more. Fallen Tory ministers are one thing, but one who lists his education
in Who’s Who as “Eton and HMP Belmarsh” has a unique selling point. While
Duncan Smith is clearly aware of this, Aitken himself professes not to be.
“Last night I was addressing an audience on prison reform at Oxford,” he says.
“The room was absolutely packed. I can’t believe prison reform would have
been much of a room filler in the past.”
I can’t tell if there is any irony there because it is buried beneath a
mountain of humility. “It’s probably because it’s in the news at the
moment,” he continues. We both know this is disingenuous. Oxford students
tipping out on a November night to hear some old lag talk about prison
reform? Aitken stretches out his long legs: “Well, I suppose I have been in
the news a bit.”
Indeed. And doing his best not to seem too obviously pleased about it. The man
who waved the “simple sword of truth” and found himself impaled on it looks
rather satisfied to be back on the interviewer’s radar. He is at pains to
say that plenty of other newspapers have been champing at the bit to
interview him. Even The Guardian? “I am at peace with most journalists and I
hope the feeling is mutual,” he says with lofty grace.
“In fact, The Guardian wrote a pleasant editorial about me this morning,” he
continues, as if slamming down a trump card. It slightly ruins the humble
demeanour.
“I don’t feel like an object of fascination,” he says, obviously loving the
idea that he might be. “It’s 10 years, more or less to the month, that I
stayed in the Ritz hotel. I think you probably heard me say on the Today
programme this morning [another trump] that there is no secret, no mystery.
The mysteries of my own weaknesses of pride and fear are there, but there is
no specific mystery as to what I was doing there.”
So, what was he doing there? “I’d rather talk about the future.”
All right then. Is this the first stage on a slow yet adroitly managed return
to politics? “This is not a route I sought,” he says, sounding a bit like St
Paul. “I don’t regard this position as a political appointment or a
promotion.” But the Centre for Social Justice advises David Cameron on
social issues, does it not? I’d say that’s rather near the hot spot of Tory
influence.
“Cameron has many sources of advice,” returns Aitken smoothly. “It is
important not to blur – as most papers have – the Centre for Social Justice
and the Conservative party into one.”
What humbug: Duncan Smith is a former Conservative leader.
“The CSJ is not apolitical but neither is it party political. We are not
hidebound by party policy. Give a try at taking what I have said at face
value,” says Aitken wearily.
For one exciting second I think we might be about to witness the arrival of
the trusty shield of British fair play, but he keeps a lid on it.
“It’s an assignment. I was surprised but pleased to be asked to do it. I
didn’t think: whoopee, this is a ladder back to politics. This is a
self-contained study group. Nothing more, nothing less.”
So if Gordon Brown had asked for your advice, would you have given it? “I
debated against Brown when Ken Clarke and I were in the Treasury team. He
always had my healthy respect. Leaving aside the improbability of him asking
me, what I have to say about prison is apolitical.”
Is it galling, though, to be out of the inner circle just when the Tories look
like becoming a creditable opposition for the first time in a decade? My
mole in Central Office says the Cameronians were quietly gasping with horror
when they heard of Aitken’s return.
Or does he think today’s lineup is a weedy imitation of the dashing assemblage
of testosterone that surrounded Margaret Thatcher. “Well, if you look at
today’s beasts in the Conservative jungle, there are half a dozen people who
have made their mark on the public consciousness pretty well.”
Are there? “Obviously Cameron, but also Hague, Davis, Duncan Smith, maybe Fox.
They are not doing any worse than when we were in opposition during the
1970s, which is when I joined them.”
In fairness, British prisons are now Aitken’s Mastermind subject. It is his
fascination and his hobby horse. After wearing the uniform and cleaning the
loos (rather well), he has since devoted his time to marching around the
world telling everyone about it. He is a regular prison visitor, a governor
of Prison Fellowship International, a charity that supports prisoners and
their families, and he speaks at prison conferences.
There does not seem to be a single element of prison policy about which Aitken
does not have a personally sourced opinion. Take overcrowding, the issue
with which politicians are currently wrestling.
“I heard about a young man in Pentonville prison who was on remand. When he
had finished his court hearing for the day, he had lost his cell at
Pentonville so that night he was moved to Chelmsford. After court the next
day, both were full. So he had to go to a third prison. Overcrowding is a
fantastic problem.”
That’s good but I want to get personal. Is it true that you were briefly known
as Joino when you were inside because you were the only inmate capable of
joined-up writing? With a nostalgic smile, Aitken asserts that this was
indeed so: “One-third of prisoners cannot read or write. I must have spent
at least two hours, sometimes four, every day of my prison sentence, reading
letters to prisoners and writing letters from them.”
Surely there are restrictions on paper and pens in prison? “Well, it depended
who was on duty,” he says. I try to imagine Aitken, great-nephew of the
press baron Lord Beaverbrook, asking for a Biro and a sheet of A4 from a
screw . . .
Literacy in prisons is now one of the areas he wants to “zero in on”, as he
puts it. “I always remember seeing a guy crying in prison,” he tells me. “I
thought he had had ‘a knock back’, which is prison slang for a bit of bad
news. But he said, ‘No. It’s because I can read the bleeding words for the
first time’.
“At Standford Hill [where he was transferred after Belmarsh], there was a
literacy teacher. A retired GP. She was paid £4 an hour. Even so, the budget
of the education department was begrudged by the prison. If you are going to
do literacy properly, where are the resources?
“Any chief secretary to the Treasury knows how difficult it is to get any
money out of the Treasury,” he says with a knowing wink. “Prisons
often make it rather difficult to be a volunteer, but one of the things we
are interested in is involving communities.”
Being a prison volunteer, however – it’s slightly more daunting than, say,
running a Red Cross jumble sale: “It can be tough. It’s not a touchy-feely
cuddle. But it works in a lot of places. And it keeps some people from
reoffending. The biggest long-term problem is repeat offending. It’s a
revolving door of crime,” he says, with the politician’s flair for the
soundbite.
Soundbites, after-dinner addresses, fluency in the face of the Today
programme; these are skills hard-wired within Aitken. Yet with this
appointment he needs some new skills. Most pertinently, he must be seen to
be squeaky clean as well as articulate. During his spell polishing the
lavatories, did he also spruce up his moral compass? “Do you think I still
wrestle with the issue of honesty?” he asks grandly. “I think it would be
insulting to the other people on the board to suggest this is going to be an
untruthful report because I am in charge of it.”
After prison he studied for two years at Wycliffe College, a theological
institution at Oxford, and overtly embraced Christianity. He wrote a book,
Psalms for People under Pressure, and still writes on theological issues.
“It’s fairly apparent,” he says, “that I have been on some sort of spiritual
journey, a personal journey.” Is he glad to have made it? “Of course the
answer is yes. Painful though it was, I think I am glad it happened.”
Indeed, the experience seems to have given Aitken a vocation beyond the
ambition of the life he once led. He looks genuinely bored when I ask him
about the recent arrival of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in London and
longs to get the conversation onto the nuts and bolts of “postrelease
mentoring”, whereby newly released prisoners are helped to find a job and
talk about their problems by mentors, often ex-offenders themselves.
“When you come out of prison you are quite disoriented for quite a long time.
Lots of people come out of prison wanting to go straight and then yield to
temptation. If they had some sort of support system it wouldn’t be so easy.”
Maybe the prison reform policy group is Aitken’s own support system. By making
this appointment, perhaps Duncan Smith has done his bit in helping Aitken to
get on the straight and narrow. I wonder if he can stay there.
