It was my fifth consecutive general election as a disenfranchised prisoner. It was the first I enjoyed. Over the previous few months I had devoured every column inch devoted to the campaign. Thoroughly educated in psephology and party politics, I knew, at last, the time had come.
I was in dour Barlinnie prison, Glasgow, when Margaret Thatcher first won the key to Number 10; ancient Durham gaol (with its tantalising views of the cathedral) as she rode again to victory in the wake of the Falklands. I found myself friendless and luckless in Albany on the Isle of Wight when she made it a hat trick in 1987. Then, last time around I was swotting up on my architectural history in top security Long Lartin. The prison had nearly erupted when Neil Kinnock fell at the last hurdle and it became clear we were in for yet another five years of Tory "nick 'em and stick 'em" philosophy.
I watched the pre-election opinion polls with the same intensity I now count the days to my release next January. Feeling almost sure that the government's time was finally up and determined to celebrate its demise in style, I decided that our therapeutic community should join the beanfeast. One of my duties here in Channings Wood is to arrange and occasionally deliver seminars of "an intellectually stimulating nature." Using as my starting point the splendid pre-election coverage in the Observer, I put together my "Election Day Special" to lend a party atmosphere to the Day of Deliverance.
At breakfast, a ballot box graced the dining room. Every member of the community was invited to drop in their vote on their way to the hated tractor pin workshop. After singing "The Sentry Song" from Iolanthe, unaccompanied, at our daily "feelgood" meeting, I prepared statistical flip charts, hung state-of-the-nation maps and set up my stump. It had been a while since I had had such a captive audience at my feet.
At two in the afternoon, with a Tory screw skulking in the corner, I gave it to the lads thick and fast, red rosette pinned to my chest, raging like a fury. In conclusion, to great guffaws, I announced the results of our mini election. There were no surprises there. It was Labour by a landslide over the Lib Dems, Greens, and Spice Girls who polled two to the Conservative party's one from a possible 50 votes.
As night fell, I looked forward to the polling stations closing. The exit polls looked good. Banged up with my radio, handful of burn and a half pint flask I rubbed my hands in anticipation. Labour were holding fast at 47 per cent.
Chris Mullin, champion of the Birmingham Six, was the first MP to be returned. Edwina Currie admitted before an hour was up that it was "all over bar the shouting." By midnight, Peter Mandelson was grinning from ear to ear and I was down to my final three roll ups and last cup of tea. When Edgbaston fell with a 10 per cent swing and 5,000 majority I began to let my hair down. The cheers from neighbouring cells were growing louder by the minute. "Go on Mr Nice!" an unpenitent junkie shouted hopefully when the returning officer for Norwich North announced 512 votes for shameless dope smuggler Howard Marks of the Legalise Cannabis party.
I took particular pleasure in the downfall of a brace of erstwhile prison ministers. Michael Forsyth had imported some pretty unpalatable penal methodology from hard-line US penitentiaries. And of course David Mellor (before he and Lady Cobham became "an item") ruled the carceral roost before and during the Strangeways riot. Iain Sproat (who put the spanner in the works when in-cell televisions were being considered) was the next on my "hit list" to go. When Labour took Bedford with a 13 per cent swing, the commentators began to think the unthinkable. Could it be Michael Portillo next and even Michael Howard? Oh God forgive my schadenfreude. I looked sadly down where my tobacco had been and began to recycle the first of my dog ends.
Although both the defence and foreign secretaries lost their seats, Michael Howard somehow slipped through the net. It seemed that the voters of Folkestone and Hythe had just not been tactical enough. I took solace in the certainty that he had lost his job as home secretary. With 137 Tory seats already gone and Tony Blair triumphant somewhere in the air between Sedgefield and the Royal Festival Hall, I slid contentedly between my itchy prison sheets and dreamt about the baroque spire of St Paul's Church, Deptford.
A bright May sun had risen in a celebration of its own by the time the disheartened screws got round to unlocking us the following morning. The whole therapeutic community swarmed about me offering congratulations and speculating about what would happen next. "You done it Pete!" It was as if I'd won the election. "You seen 'em off good and proper!" "D'ya reckon we'll get our parole now?" they all wanted to know. "Will there be an amnesty?"
I could not answer any of their questions-and I did not want to tell them what Jack Straw has been saying-but I did spend the rest of the day in a state of grace. The dark years were over at last. I felt like Moses when he led his people out of slavery in Egypt.
