Heaven

DAY 151 SUNDAY 16 DECEMBER 2001

7.30 am

Only five inmates turn up for early morning surgery. Linda explains that although the prison has a photographic club, woodwork shop, library, gym and chapel, a lot of the prisoners spend the weekend in bed, rising only to eat or watch a football match on TV. It seems such a waste of their lives.

2.00 pm

My visitors today are Malcolm and Edith Rifkind. Malcolm and I entered the House around the same time, and have remained friends ever since. Malcolm is one of those rare animals in politics who has few enemies. He was Secretary of State for Defence and Foreign Secretary under John Major, and I can’t help reflecting how no profession other than politics happily divests itself of its most able people when they are at their peak. It’s the equivalent of dropping Beckham or Wilkinson at the age of twenty-five. Still, that’s the prerogative of the electorate, and one of the few disadvantages of living in a democracy.

Malcolm and his wife Edith want to know all about prison life, while I wish to hear all the latest gossip from Westminster. Malcolm makes one political comment that will remain fixed in my memory: ‘If in 1979 the electorate had offered us a contract for eighteen years, we would have happily signed it, so we can’t complain if we now have to spend a few years in the wilderness.’ He and Edith have travelled up from London to see me, and they will now drive on to Edinburgh. I cannot emphasize often enough how much I appreciate the kindness of friends.

8.00 pm

Mr Baker drops in for coffee and a chat. The officers’ mess is closed over the weekend, so the hospital is the natural pit stop. He tells me that one prisoner has absconded, while another, on returning from his town visit, was so drunk that he had to be helped out of his wife’s car. That will be his last town visit for several months. And here’s the rub, it was his first day out of prison for six years.