Daniel Finkelstein - Everything in Moderation

William Collins

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This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2020

Copyright Daniel Finkelstein 2020

Cover design: Keenan

Daniel Finkelstein asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780008356606

Ebook Edition July 2020 ISBN: 9780008356620

Version: 2020-08-10

For Nicky

I suppose you could say that I really started working on this book when I was eight years old.

It was then that I began getting up early so that I could be the first one to read the newspaper. Rather to the bemusement of my parents, who had absolutely no interest in sport, Id become a football fan, and I wanted to read the match reports and the scores before my dad came downstairs to make breakfast. After that, the paper was his.

So as soon as it arrived I would skip to the front door, lay The Times out on the hall rug, and, starting with the back pages, read whatever football news there was. Which wasnt much, to be honest.

After Id been doing this each day for a couple of years, it occurred to me that the paper seemed to contain a lot of other stuff and maybe it was interesting. So when I had completed my survey of the football coverage, I turned the paper over and began again at the front.

It was at about this time that the burglars were caught in the Watergate complex. I was soon hooked on the stories of the President and his men. And on the other political battles that made the mid-1970s such a fascinating political time.

It made me rather an odd child, though. I obtained the autographs of Norman St John-Stevas and Ray Buckton (google them). I collected Times Guides to the House of Commons and memorised the size of majorities of MPs. When Giscard dEstaing became President of France, my French teacher told the class about it and announced that he had until then been defence minister. I responded that in fact Giscard had been finance minister. I was, at that point, eleven.

And so I first became attached to three of the great passions of my life: football, politics and The Times. And much as I imagined I might grow out of one or the other of them, I never have.

My parents couldnt talk to me much about football, although they did try. My father, a bookish professor, even took me to Hendon games. Sitting in the freezing cold at half time in a recent Hendon home match I heard over the tannoy: Elsewhere in the league its Billericay nil, Bognor Regis nil, and I thought, my goodness, my dad must have loved me very much.

But politics was a different matter. I wouldnt say either of them was excessively political and they were both less-than-usually argumentative people. But they did think public affairs mattered a great deal and they were thrilled that I did too.

So, over breakfast each day we would talk about what was in the news. Other things came up. Philosophy a little, mathematics a fair bit and religion too (more out of intellectual interest than devotion). But mostly it was politics.

Around the time I first became interested, 1970 or so, my parents were both Labour voters. Dad, especially, really liked Harold Wilson. As an engineer (a measurement theorist to be precise), my father felt that modern systems and planning were the way to organise a society. The talk of forging a new Britain in the white heat of technology was very attractive to him.

As I write later in this book, he was also an immigrant who had lived on welfare benefits, made his way through night school and worked in the coal mines. He found the Conservative Party of Macmillan an alien thing and suspected the feeling was mutual.

He did have one problem with Labour, however. As a child he had been deported to Siberia along with his mother, and his father had been arrested and sentenced to hard labour as a capitalist and democratic civic leader. As a result of this, my father did not trust the MPs to Wilsons left, but this rather increased his support for Wilson himself.

My mother a maths teacher and as much a believer in scientific progress as Dad shared this concern about extremists, but for a reason that was both different and not so different. She was a survivor of Belsen concentration camp. She was always pretty wary politically of anybody how shall I put this overexcitable.

By the end of the 1970s, my dad had come to the conclusion that planning the economy didnt work, and both of them became concerned about the Left. Thus began the shift that saw them vote SDP in the 1980s and Conservative after that, though very much of the Major/Cameron kind.

So this was the environment I grew up in. A generally progressive household, but a Times-reading one rather than a Guardian-reading one. Rationalist and pro-science, firmly on the American side of the Cold War, socially liberal on race and womens equality, for the welfare state and public services, for free speech and the rule of law and, above all other things, for moderation, a sense of proportion and generosity to other people.

Whether it is nature or nurture a bit of both I think this isnt a bad description of my own politics all these years later. My mum often used to use the phrase Everything in Moderation. She mostly applied it to portion size and her willingness to try anything once, but it could pretty much be our family political slogan.

All of these hobbies and instincts I brought with me when I joined The Times properly in 2001. Plus one other thing: a lot of political experience.

By the age of twenty-four, I had already run for Parliament. I was the SDPs candidate against Ken Livingstone in Brent East in 1987. I was far too young. I hadnt had a proper job yet, I lived at home and I couldnt drive. Ive a letter from the local Citizens Advice Bureau somewhere that reads: Dear Mr Finkelstein, it was so nice to meet you, and your mother.

But Id become close to the party leader David Owen and hed become a mentor. Actually he still is. I did a lot of growing up when I worked with David. During the 1987 election we had breakfast every day before his press conference. He said he found it helpful and I believe him, because he doesnt dissemble, even to your face. But I suspect it was me that found it more useful.

I learned a lot from David about national politics, fighting by his side on the partys national committee. I also learned a great deal about how to maintain your integrity and independence, how to think things through for yourself and ensure you never let being moderate make you go soft altogether.

Ultimately, of course, we were unsuccessful: the party collapsed, and I rather surprised myself by what I did next. I joined the Conservative Party.