One of the joys of writing a book about authoritarian capitalism is that I am spoilt for choice. My travels have taken me from Singapore to Luanda to Moscow to Rome and in the next few days I am off to the Gulf. Later in the year comes China. Last week I was back in Russia, for the annual Valdai conference, where experts from around the world are given red-carpet treatment. This time we were offered two for the price of one. Vladimir Putin indulged us with a three-hour lunch in Sochi. Not to be outdone, we were given similar treatment by Dmitry Medvedev in the bizarre setting of a banqueting hall on the top floor of Gum, the department store that overlooks Red Square. Prime Minister Putin was at his rhetorical best, wondering out loud if Russia should have fought back the Georgian hordes with catapults, and whether its soldiers should not have simply wiped the ‘bloody snot’ from their noses. President Medvedev did his best to sound like the real boss (that he isn’t). But as Putin helpfully pointed out, the West had, by supporting the Georgians, blown any prospects of a more liberal shift in Russia. In my 30 years of visiting this place, I have never seen the politics of grievance as strong as it is now. Conspicuous consumption seems just to reinforce it.
I hadn’t been to Chechnya since the early 1990s. For much of that time it has been bombarded and besieged, and in the hands of either local warlords or the Russian military. We were flown in to Grozny for a few hours to see how the city has been rapidly, and impressively, rebuilt. Moscow has put its faith in Ramzan Kadyrov, a man barely 30; it will spare him no rewards for his endeavours. Kadyrov’s official residence, a dozen miles outside the capital, is nearly complete. The grounds include his very own horse-racing track, a man-made lake on which he can race his jet skis, and a personal zoo where, he told us, he likes to unwind communing with the tigers and cheetahs.
State-run television devoted much of its prime time news to our group’s schmoozing with the leaders. It came as no surprise that cameras were absent from our discussion with Garry Kasparov, the closest Russia gets nowadays to an opposition figure. A mercurial man, Kasparov continues gamely to predict the demise of Kremlin power. He seemed strangely unversed in the details of brutality against difficult journalists. I was particularly keen to grill him on this, as I have just taken over running Index on Censorship. The organisation (at which a young M d’Ancona was once an intern) was set up to promote the cause of dissidents in the Soviet era. It has since branched out to look at curbs on freedom of expression around the world. Its quarterly journal and website have won plaudits, but they have yet to reach as many people as they should. My task is to try to put Index where it belongs — leading the important debate in the UK and abroad about media censorship and repression.
Another part of my new portfolio existence is Chair of the board of Turner Contemporary. By the time the stunning building opens in 2011, it will be the biggest art gallery in the south-east outside London. My most pressing task is to create a board of trustees. I have been astounded by the number of high-profile candidates who have applied to give up their time for free. You read it here first. For anyone interested in visual arts, Margate will soon be the place to be seen.
More than seven months after I quit a certain rival political weekly, it is about to have a new editor. Jason Cowley is a good guy; he was one of my contributing editors and advisers, and will do the New Statesman proud. I also have enormous respect for Sue Matthias, who was instrumental in helping secure our various awards and circulation highs during our halcyon period. She has since kept the show on the road with aplomb. The most important development, though, is the arrival at the helm of entrepreneur Mike Danson, a man with ambitions for the title.
As for the state of the Labour party, I offer one anecdote. At a recent party, a Cabinet minister still loyal to Gordon Brown (yes, there are still a few) took me to task, very gently, on one of my Daily Telegraph columns. I had suggested that Labour could go the way of the Progressive Conservatives of Canada in the early 1980s. They had gone, in one election, from ruling the country to holding only two seats. I had, the minister suggested, been a little harsh. ‘I’m confident we’ll get at least 100.’
For all the long-distance travel, the destination that most excites me at the moment is Stratford-on-Avon. I managed to secure two tickets for Hamlet, for myself and my 11-year-old daughter. David Tennant has taken pride of place on posters in her bedroom displacing, to my chagrin, Chelsea’s Frank Lampard. When I phoned a bed and breakfast landlady near the theatre she told me not only was her place full, but could she persuade me to reconsider my decision to come? Could I not stay in London and sell her the tickets? More than my life was worth, I told her.