Arise Sir Julian

Happy New Year.

My first task at the weekend was to check the New Year Honours List for anyone I might know.

Bad news: still no recognition for Deborah Arnott, CEO of ASH, or Sheila Duffy, director of ASH Scotland. It’s nine years since I first raised this injustice and it’s a scandal, frankly.

One familiar name, awarded a knighthood, did appear on the 2023 list - The Rt Hon Dr Sir Julian Lewis MP.

I first met Julian 40 years ago. We were introduced by a mutual friend, George Miller-Kurakin. At the time Julian was director of the Campaign for Peace through Security (CPS) which supported Britain having a strong nuclear deterrent.

This was a far bigger political issue than it is today. Labour leader Michael Foot had been a founding member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Labour Party went into the 1983 General Election actively committed to unilateral nuclear disarmament which is one reason why their election manifesto was described as the 'longest suicide note in history'.

Although the Conservative party, led by Margaret Thatcher, won the election by a landslide (144 seats), CND were determined to fight on. In October 1983, a few months after the election, they organised what they claimed was their 'biggest ever protest’ in London against nuclear weapons.

Why am I telling you this? Well, Julian and his team worked from a small office in an old and rather gloomy building at one end of Whitehall, a stone’s throw from Trafalgar Square. (According to Julian's Wikipedia entry, which is well worth reading, it was rented from Jeffrey Archer.)

Opposite the CPS office was the Whitehall Theatre (now the Trafalgar Theatre) which was owned at the time by Paul Raymond, a controversial figure who also owned much of Soho including numerous strip clubs.

The story I heard is that Raymond agreed to let CPS hang a banner across Whitehall with one end attached to the CPS office, the other to his theatre on the other side of the road.

Whether Raymond was directly involved I don’t know but on the morning of the march a large banner duly appeared high above Whitehall. It read:

1983 ELECTION - LOSERS’ EXIT

It wasn’t the most subtle message but it enraged the marchers below who had no choice but to walk beneath it en route to Hyde Park via Whitehall and Trafalgar Square.

I had a great view because I was on the roof of the CPS office that day watching and waving to the protesters as they ambled past with their own banners and placards.

I later joined friends on the ground and heard some of the marchers' comments as they walked under the CPS banner. That was quite amusing too.

CND estimated there were 400,000 protestors on the march but aerial photography commissioned by Julian showed the claim to be wildly exaggerated.

The real figure was nearer 100,000 but it was nevertheless a major event during a momentous period in British politics.

The Falklands War had been fought, and won, in 1982. In 1983 Margaret Thatcher won her second General Election and two years’ later, after a 12-month struggle that began in 1984, she defeated the same mineworkers’ union that had brought Ted Heath’s Conservative government down a decade earlier.

Oh, and she also survived an IRA bomb that destroyed part of The Grand Hotel in Brighton where she was staying during the 1984 Conservative party conference.

While much of this was going on I was producing, with a little help from Julian, a national student magazine that was fighting its own ideological battle - against the National Union of Students.

Another issue Julian wanted to address was political bias on television current affairs programmes that had far bigger audiences in those days and therefore had the potential to be significantly more influential than they are today.

And so the Media Monitoring Unit was born whereupon I was recruited by Julian to do the research and publish a series of reports.

The MMU operated from 1985 to 1990 after which I got married and moved to Edinburgh. Julian, who also ran a political consultancy, Policy Research Associates, continued to pursue his political ambitions, eventually becoming the member of Parliament for New Forest East, a seat he has held for a quarter of a century.

I must confess that although we exchange Christmas cards I’ve seen him only a few times in the intervening years. The last time was at an event to celebrate the life of our old friend George Miller following George’s sudden death at the age of 54. As I wrote here:

Julian Lewis, Conservative MP for New Forest East, captured the mood well when he spoke not only of George's achievements but also of his warmth, charm and immense good humour. When Julian mentioned George's "chuckle" there were nods of recognition …

Today Julian is chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, having previously been a member of the Defence Select Committee.

In my opinion he would have made an excellent defence minister but he and several other Conservative MPs who might have expected government roles after 2010 were denied them when the Conservatives went into government with the Lib Dems. As a result positions that would have gone to Conservatives (had there been a majority Conservative government) went to Lib Dems instead.

A small consolation perhaps is that in 2015 Julian was appointed to the Privy Council, hence The Right Honourable designation.

In recent years he has acquired a reputation as a bit of a maverick but I think that’s unfair. He may plough his own furrow but it’s entirely consistent with his long-held beliefs and principles, and I admire that.

I admire too his loyalty to friends such as John Bercow who is not everyone’s cup of tea. Although their politics are now very different I have never heard Julian criticise his old friend.

Something else I observed from working with him all those years ago was his forensic, almost obsessive, attention to detail. At the time it could be a bit tiresome when something I had written came back with multiple minor corrections or amendments. In hindsight it taught me some valuable lessons.

Anyway, I’m delighted that his ‘political and public service’ has been recognised.

If Julian was to write a memoir I would recommend it to anyone. Unfortunately a combination of his own discretion and the Official Secrets Act will probably kibosh any chance of that but I live in hope!