Purgatory

DAY 57 – THURSDAY 13 SEPTEMBER 2001

6.03 am

It was a clear cold night, and for the first time two flimsy blankets were not enough to keep me warm. I had to lie very still if I was not to freeze. It reminded me of being back at boarding school. As two blankets are the regulation issue, I shall have to speak to Darren about the problem. I’m pretty confident he will have a reserve stock.

8.15 am

I watch breakfast television while eating my cornflakes. The news coming out of Washington is that the State Department seems convinced that it was, as has already been widely reported, Osama bin Laden who orchestrated the terrorist attacks. We must now wait and see how George W. Bush plans to retaliate. The president’s description of the terrorists as ‘folks’ hasn’t filled the commentators with confidence. Rudy Giuliani, the Mayor of New York, on the other hand, is looking more like a world statesman every day. When the report switches from Washington to New York, I am surprised to observe a pall of smoke still hanging over the city. It’s only when the cameras pan down onto the rubble that one is made fully aware of just how long it will be before that city’s physical scars can be healed.

9.00 am

We’re banged up for an hour owing to officers’ staff training.

10.00 am

Pottery. I make my way quickly across to the art class as I need to see Shaun, and find out if he now has all the art materials he needs. I’m disappointed to find that he’s not around, so I end up reading a book on the life of Picasso, studying in particular Guernica which he painted in support of his countrymen at the time of the Spanish Civil War. I know it’s a masterpiece, but I desperately need someone like Brian Sewell to explain to me why.

2.00 pm

Gym. Completed my full programme, and feel fitter than I have done for years.

6.21 pm

Tagged onto the end of the news is an announcement that Iain Duncan Smith has been elected as the new leader of the Conservative Party. He won by a convincing margin of 155,935 (61 per cent) to 100,864 (39 per cent) for Kenneth Clarke. A far better turnout than I had expected. Having spent years trying to convince my party that we should trust our members to select the leader, the 79 per cent turnout gives me some satisfaction. However, I would have to agree with Michael Brown, a former Conservative MP who is now a journalist with the Independent: a year ago you could have got odds of a hundred to one against a man who hadn’t served in either Margaret Thatcher’s or John Major’s governments – at any level – ending up as leader of the Tory party in 2001.

10.00 pm

I watch a special edition of Question Time, chaired by David Dimbleby. I only hope the audience wasn’t a typical cross-section of British opinion, because I was horrified by how many people were happy to condemn the Americans, and seemed to have no sympathy for the innocent people who had lost their lives at the hands of terrorists.

My feelings went out to Philip Lader, the popular former American ambassador, as he found himself having to defend his country’s foreign policy.

I fall asleep, angry.