Opinion: ‘Tories on the ropes’
The election on July 4 could be just as bruising for the Tories as that historic night in 1997, writes Phil Ascough
The knockout blow of Michael Portillo losing his seat didn’t come until the early hours of the morning after, but in the 1997 General Election campaign the Tories were on the ropes even before it was called.
Ring any bells?
In Hull, my task was to get the reaction of business leaders as the results came in, late on the night of Thursday May 1 and into the morning. One way to do that would be to set up late night phone calls. A better option was to head to the Royal Hotel, then known as the Quality Royal Hotel, where captains of industry were out in force at a big boxing night.
An advert for the show in Fight Night magazine shows a sketch of two playing cards slugging it out, the seven of diamonds landing a telling punch on the four of clubs. Blue gloves sending red gloves crashing to the floor. They couldn’t have got it more wrong.
The election had been announced on March 17, giving Mike Ulyatt Enterprises plenty of time to develop the political theme around its fifth pro boxing dinner show.
In the event Mike didn’t have to do much. The very real prospect of Labour unseating a Tory party which had been in power since Margaret Thatcher’s first election victory in 1979 ensured the Royal Hotel was abuzz with chat and speculation.
Steve Tradewell, general manager of the hotel, placed some big TV sets in the lounge, enabling guests to keep track of the early results.
In the banqueting hall the card included Hull boxers Dave Thompson and Rob Stevenson. The cabaret performer was Johnny Casson – who Mike recalled had recently appeared on the Des O’Connor TV show and was also a regular on ITV’s The Comedians.
Programme notes were penned by Gilbert Johnson, a freelance journalist of some renown and even infamy, who in his early life had tried his hand as a pugilist and even a priest.
Writing his obituary in 2011, I was informed that after Gilbert’s National Service with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps in Kenya it was expected he would resume his studies for the priesthood. But he had decided mortal sin was much better, so he became a newspaperman.
As the fists flew in the ring, the feedback from the lounge showed the Tories throwing in the towel, with the exit polls pointing to a big win for Labour.
Meanwhile political allegiance and a palatable red wine over-fuelled the passion of one diner who, ultimately, rendered himself unfit to be interviewed.
LABOUR HEAVYWEIGHTS: Alan Johnson, left, with Lord Prescott, third left, and Alastair Campbell, right, winners for Labour in 1997 and reunited when Campbell was interviewed by Paul Sewell, second left, during Humber Business Week in 2022
The prominent Tory was prawn pink as he tucked into his starter, the shade of a rare fillet steak as the mains came out and, by the end, almost the colour of the contents of his bottle.
Sensing early in the evening that he was eager to contribute, I’d asked him to try to hold things together for an hour or so. Then I tried pleading with his pals to slip him the occasional glass of water, but to no avail. All the chap wanted by then was to follow up his barrage of expletives by going three rounds with Tony Blair.
Mike’s master stroke was provided by the ever resourceful David Whincup, who headed up the Red Cross in Hull and managed to get his hands on two bottles of whisky, each signed by Blair and John Major. Whatever the outcome of the election, the purchaser would have the autograph of the new Prime Minister.
The prize brought in £750 for the Red Cross and a fair amount of publicity as Steve and David lined up with Gordon Stalker, general manager of fight night sponsors Stakis Regency Casino, for a photograph with the bottles.
In a modern day repeat the auction would probably be in aid of a food bank.
When the final bell rang after the last fight there was no hurry for people to get away. Some headed off to the casino, many stayed at the Royal overnight, refilled their glasses and continued to watch the results rolling in.
CHARACTER: Pugilist turned journalist Gilbert Johnson
The result which brought any lingering Conservative hopes crashing down is remembered as The Portillo Moment. The returning officer at Enfield Southgate confirmed at 3:10am that one-time Tory poster boy Michael Denzil Xavier Portillo, the defence minister at the time, had lost his seat to Labour’s Stephen Twigg.
By then I was wrapping up my piece having headed back to the office at about 1am with notes from half a dozen or more business leaders who were capable of lucid conversation. I’ve spoken to some of them again in the last week.
Their mood then, as now, was that it was time for change. Then, as now, the country was stuck with a lame duck Prime Minister who people felt was in office but not in control. Then, as now, Europe was a key issue and the spark for a series of blue-on-blue attacks.
A significant change is that then, businesses said they wanted to see certainty and stability. Now, they still want those things but most of all, after 14 years of incompetence, gaslighting and sheer corruption, they want to see a government which is ethical.
Major was boring, and undermined repeatedly by the Tory party’s right wing, but he was as honest as the day is long. The problem businesses have with the Tory party now is not so much Rishi Sunak as the entire culture.
Brexit was always going to be a disaster. Fresh evidence of the inept and crooked handling of Covid continues to emerge almost daily. Hand-wringing over war in Ukraine is hard to swallow given the deception surrounding the Russia report.
BRUISING ENCOUNTER: The cover of Fight Night magazine on May 1, 1997
The pathetic image of a sodden Sunak announcing the election is an eternal reminder that his party chose austerity when they should have been fixing the roof while the sun shone.
The 1997 General Election handed Labour a majority of 179 seats. In Hull West and Hessle, the constituency of The Quality Royal Hotel, voters elected Alan Johnson, who became an outstanding parliamentarian. Who knows how things might have turned out had he decided to stand as party leader?
Ulyatt continued his career as something of an events impresario and, after stepping down at the 2017 election, Johnson became a stalwart as a speaker at his acclaimed literary lunches. Tradewell is still in hospitality and runs his own business linking hotels, guest houses and B&Bs with companies seeking accommodation for out-of-town work.
Whincup died in April 2020 as one of the first victims of Covid in our region. He had earned enormous respect for his work as a senior police officer, a tireless charity supporter, a successful businessman and even as chair of Howden and Haltemprice Conservatives.
He told me many times of his disdain for his constituency MP, David Davis, who said to the media as Brexit Secretary in July 2017 it was “time to get down to the substance of the matter”, yet who had turned up for a meeting with the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier armed only with fixed grin of inadequacy.
Early in 1997 with the election looming I invited Davis to contribute to a series of articles in which the three main political parties could set out their plans for business. His refusal indicated that then, as now, his didn’t have any.
The Royal Hotel, where Queen Victoria stayed on a visit to Hull in 1854, was selected in 2020 as emergency accommodation for asylum seekers and stands as a symbol of the government’s shambolic immigration policy.
And finally, we need a new idea for collecting live business feedback from this year’s election. Boxing shows are a rarity, and there are far more women leading businesses than 27 years ago.