Where is Lord Birt? ask kerfuffled MPs (Pub-friendly) [The Rockall Times]

In a brief appearance before the House of Commons Liaison Committee last week The Prime Minister clashed with its chairman Alan Williams over the delicate issue of Lord Birt.

Lord Birt: Have you seen this man? In recent months the committee had made numerous attempts to contact the legendary advisor and invite him down to the Commons for a chat about some of his latest brainwaves, but to no avail.

Now the dogged Welsh chairman had Mr Blair in the hot seat. He asserted the committee's right to call in the head of blue-sky projects at Downing Street for a long overdue tête-à-tête. "Go on Tony, We've not seen hide nor hair of him for yonks. What harm could it do? After all, we are the Liaison Committee. It's our duty to liaise."

But the Prime Minister, with the clock ticking on his premiership, and only too aware that his legacy depends very largely on a flow of radical new ideas from the brains of his most precious advisor, was determined to protect him from the risky exposure of a committee hearing. Any interruption, however brief, in the priceless cogitations of the inspirational peer could delay the crucial programme of reform by months.

Mr Blair squirmed in his seat, clearly not enjoying his own grilling and anxious to be off, his aides on either side of him checking their watches as he faced down the barrage of polite entreaties from the Chair.

Finally he lost patience. "Look, it's just simply not on, he's too busy. No disrespect to the Committee, but get stuffed!"

In the Prime Minister's view it was Stephen Aldridge, Director of the Downing Street Strategy Unit, who was "particularly well suited" to appearing before the committee and explain the general train of Birt's current thinking, as indeed he was wont to do on all occasions where actual physical presence was required. The committee would have to do their liaising with Aldridge instead.

"Oh but Tony, he's so mundane," Alan Williams protested. "His thoughts are all down here in the muck with the rest of us. It's blue-sky thinking we want, pure and sublime — up, up and away out there." All eyes in the committee room followed the line of the Chairman's index finger as it stretched towards the window and out into the wide blue yonder of a crisp winter's day. High up in those cold celestial reaches an exceptional mind was roaming the stratosphere, plucking bright ideas out of thin air. Ingenious dodges and wheezes that would one day culminate in path-breaking policy initiatives to dazzle the nation and turn around the Prime Minister's fortunes in the fast disintegrating third term.

"Only Lord Birt has the big picture," the chairman insisted. "He's ideally placed to answer our inquiries."

"I know he's ideally placed," the Prime Minister retorted. "I helped place him myself. But he's not to be disturbed. There'd be hell to pay."

Mr Blair closed his notebook with a resounding thud, stood up in unison with his aides and left, followed by most of the press. The committee erupted into pandemonium with boos and catcalls at the retreating pack. For the Lib Dems and the rebels this was the ultimate arrogance, the final proof if any be needed of Blair's utter contempt for parliamentary procedure, and they shouted it loud and clear. Many others however, who harboured suspicions as to the true status and whereabouts of the elusive Lord Birt, were struck by his intimate confidant's curious choice of words before departing. They turned to each other in groups to compare notes and trade feverish speculations.

Ever since his appointment to the post of Principal Blue Sky Thinker, loosely attached to the Strategy Unit at Number 10, the former Director General of the BBC Lord Birt had paradoxically receded into the shadows, his bodily presence seeming to ebb away in direct proportion to the growth of his intellectual influence over the party's radical reforming agenda.

The disparity was now so marked that questions were being asked, in the bars and cafés of Westminster village and here, with unusual gusto, on the buzzing committee floor.

"When did you actually last see him, I mean the man himself, the walking, talking, physical peer in person?"

"I'd say a month or two ago. Not the whole body, mind you, but he did show his face, I'm sure of it. Yes, it was a fringe meeting at the conference — he poked his head round the door with that beatific smile on his face, as though he knows something we don't and his worldly cares are over."

"That's right! I saw it too, I know just what you mean — that look of sheer contented bliss that often comes upon people of a certain age once they've slipped this mortal coil and only have higher, more edifying matters to attend to."

Your Rockall Times correspondent, the sole representative of the press who had stayed behind to pick up on these rumours while the herd followed the Prime Minister out of the room, was taking scrupulous notes.

"It's all very well to rest on your laurels, but what about those reports he was supposed to produce," piped up an indignant female voice to my right. "He was supposed to get us out of this hole with his blue-sky solutions. Give us something to crow about for once. Where are those bloody reports, that's what I want to know!"

The flame-red hair and strident tone of the speaker were unmistakable. It was the one-time focus group facilitator turned loyal backbench MP for Coventry North-East Beverley Stodge. "His ground-breaking report on the railways and how to get them sorted — three years overdue!" she fumed.

"And that other report on how to stop global warming," a male Labour colleague chipped in. "Christ, how he's been dithering over that one, and it's too late now. Those nuclear boffins have got in first and sorted it out for themselves."

"And not forgetting the most important study of all," added the promising young Tory backbencher Darius Twee. "The definitive, ultimate, mind-boggling report on how to get shot of all those intractable problems to do with life, the universe and everything."

"Oh but that's not entirely fair, Darius," the chairman intervened. "I've heard he's coming along quite nicely with that one. He's apparently finished with life and he's half-way through the universe at the last count, perhaps even two-thirds at the rate he's going. So it won't be that long now till he's done everything."

"But he's still late with it!" Beverley snapped back. "By the time it's come back from the printers there'll be no chance to put it in practice this side of the election and save Tony's legacy for future generations."

Listening to this delightful political sparring, I scratched my chin reflectively. There seemed to be a common thread running through the various MPs' assessments of the distinguished advisor's work. Late, late, and late again. A distinct keynote of tardiness, always a grave danger for the high-level strategist, and it seemed that even Lord Birt himself had fallen prey. So many dazzling thought patterns, gigantic leaps and bounds of the imagination by the bucketload, and yet, despite the sustained intensity of his incessant brainstorming, no end product.

But it didn't add up. Lord Birt was no ordinary advisor, subject to the failings of ordinary men. The ethereal flights of his lofty intellect were too crucial to the government and the nation to be held up by the usual bureaucratic delays in publication. There must be something even more extraordinary going on behind the scenes that stopped him getting it out. Some powerful force over which Birt, for all his intellectual pre-eminence, had no control.

As long ago as December 2000, shortly after Birt's well-earned move from Broadcasting House to Downing Street and a peerage, the incoming BBC Chief Greg Dyke had paid him a moving tribute, referring to his illustrious predecessor as "the late, lamentable Director General Lord Birt." It had caused a bit of a stir at the time, though quickly suppressed by counter-briefings from Number 10, and largely forgotten.

But the rumours had started again early this year when strategy chief Stephen Aldridge, public mouthpiece for the cerebral peer, had been called upon to explain the ever-growing catalogue of missed deadlines and disappointing no-shows on the part of the government's most senior advisor.

"Remember he's got the sky to do," he told the skeptics. "That's always the most difficult part of the jigsaw. It requires huge concentration and I can absolutely assure you that Birtie's giving it all he's got. I've learnt a hell of a lot from Birtie," he added, "and he's a great pleasure to work with, apart from the musty smell."

Despite numerous apparent sightings since then the rumours persisted that the top-ranking advisor was more down to earth than previously supposed. One anonymous tribute claimed there was incontrovertible evidence that far from being up in the air he was a man "with both feet firmly in the ground".

And now once again he was "too busy" to show himself and liaise. It was time to put an end to the pretence. I left the committee to its deliberations and headed for Downing Street.

"About Aldridge is it? Oh yes, we can talk about Aldridge till the cows come home. He's a safe pair of hands, Stephen Aldridge." Veteran press officer John Baloney relaxed into the deep leather chair behind his desk. "Shoot!" he commanded.

"What makes him 'particularly well suited', according to the Prime Minister, to attend the committee hearing in place of Birt?" I asked.

"I think it's the way he breathes."

"How do you mean?"

"Regularly, frequently."

"And Birt?"

Baloney leaned forward with an amused grin. "Well, breathing's not exactly his forte," he admitted. "He's more of a thinker as you know, the best one on our books by a long shot. With Birtie everything is subservient to thought. A bit like the late Bernard Shaw in a way."

Aha! "The late," I emphasised. "The late Bernard Shaw. But at least he finished his plays. Where's all the stuff that Lord Birt was supposed to produce by now?"

Baloney smiled indulgently. "Really, Dick, you mustn't be so impatient. These are big issues. Much bigger than anything Shaw had to grapple with. There's a lot of blue sky up there and it all has to be thought through. Give him time."

"But he hasn't got time! The Prime Minister's authority is hanging by a thread. He needs a silver bullet right now."

"You're wrong, Dick. He's got all the time in the world. You mustn't rush him. But his pencils are all sharpened and he's cracking on. You've never seen such a tidy desk. He's doing a fantastic job for us — look at his record, completely unblemished..."

"Because there's nothing in it!" I broke in.

Baloney was losing patience. "No really, Dick, you've got the wrong end of the stick. It's the grey matter that counts, the goings-on up here, that's what Birtie's all about. All he needs is a good shaking up now and again. Just look at this epitaph."

"Epitaph?" I queried as he rummaged in one of his deep desk drawers.

"Citation I mean," he corrected himself. He pulled out a vellum scroll. "A citation on the occasion of his peerage. Lovely tribute. Just read it for yourself."

I unravelled the scroll and spread it out on the press officer's desk. "... remarkable intelligence for a stiff ... unstinting intellectual effort from beyond the grave — truly an example to us all ... a misfortune that would have put paid to lesser intellects ... overcame his decease by pure brainpower alone ..."

I took a deep breath. Slowly, reverently, I handed back the scroll. In my clumsy groping after the truth I had scarcely guessed at the astonishing magnitude of the dead man's achievement.

I felt light-headed, floating upward. Baloney's voice called me back down to earth. "Stay for a drink won't you, Dick."

I accepted. As we drifted into small talk I heard a slight creak from behind. Something caught the press officer's eye. He gave a slight wave. I turned round quickly. There it was, the beatific smile of the sepulchral advisor popping his head round the door. In an instant he was gone.

"What's the matter Dick?" my host asked me, "you're shaking. It's only Birtie checking out. He's finished his thoughts for the day and he's off to his long home. In fine fettle isn't he, for a dead man?"

I knocked back my drink. "Dead and thinking," I agreed. "Plenty of life in the old corpse yet."

Where is Lord Birt? ask kerfuffled MPs

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