From Preston to Parliament: Retiring Local Democracy Reporter, Bill Jacobs' journalistic travels

Next stop on my journalistic wanderings was the Palace of Westminster. As a press gallery colleague said returning from the pub: “Not bad for the office is it?”

What a place to work and as a lobby correspondent for a variety of regional newspapers including the Lancashire Telegraph, Edinburgh Evening News and Newcastle Chronicle I had what with hindsight I now think was the best job in British journalism.

I spent much of my time in an office just below Big Ben generally known as ‘The Rampton Wing’. We were just a few flights of stairs from the House of Commons lobby and the MPs.

You never chased after on down the corridor as ‘there would be another one along in a minute’.

The daily theatre of the Parliamentary chamber was below where you could see things like Conservative Cabinet minister Ken Clarke entertainingly busking it until his aide came in behind him to point out which of three speeches was the one to read out.

I was there as Margaret Thatcher was forced out of Prime Ministerial office – a historic political event to which I had a ringside seat.

And I was there at another seismic change – Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide Labour victory.

This meant half the new top team were my ‘locals’ – including the PM, Robin Cook, Alistair Darling and Blackburn’s own Jack Straw – which meant none of them dared fib about what they said in Cabinet.

My link to Edinburgh was my passport to Princess Diana’s funeral to write a spread for a special late edition of that night’s Evening News.

Mr Straw became something of a close friend and not just for announcing to a global audience on CNN in the early days of rolling 24-hour news that he no longer set his alarm clock but just waited for my daily crack of dawn phone call.

He also took me for a fascinating day in the Home Office and gave me and the LT the only interview about his teenage son’s arrest for cannabis possession.

Dealing with his predecessor as Blackburn MP – the magnificent Barbara Castle who loved to embarrass him and Blair – was a joy.

I would ring her up at her ‘Hell Corner Farm’ home to be told she was very frail and could only speak for 10 minutes and 45 later was waiting for her to finish.

Blair was a politician like the Red Baroness sprinkled with political stardust as when tackled by Tory grandee Sir Peter Tapsell in the Commons on whether his religious convictions meant he was now taking ‘advice from angels’ he spread his hands wide, looked up and said: “Come on then!”

I was due to interview him on a train north from Euston when I ended up hurdling cases down the platform to catch it before the doors closed. As I went into his compartment the PM looked at me and said: “Bill I never knew you could run that fast.”

His press secretary Alastair Campbell being a Burnley fan did me no harm and Rossendale and Darwen MP Janet Anderson was a wonderful Parliamentary gossip – which I understand the late Queen enjoyed when she took over the regular message to the Monarch from Westminster.

Of course it was not all joy.

The first time I met Mrs Thatcher she terrified me. The last time as dementia took hold, she was a diminished rather sad lady who knew she knew me but wasn’t quite sure exactly who I was.

And then there was the phone call from future PM David Cameron (who I covered for the Oxford Mail) asking what to do about releasing the news that his first child Ivan was severely disabled.

I must not forget my legendary confrontation in the early days of the Northern Ireland peace process with former IRA chief of staff Martin McGuinness outside a Bournemouth Labour conference bar over the para-military organisation’s delay in decommissioning its weapons during which I am told I jabbed him in the chest with my finger!

Eventually having taken full advantage of the 17 subsidised bars at Westminster (where many of the best stories could be found) my world collapsed into a bottle in 2008 and I had a three year break to dry out and recover.

Four years later it was back home to the LT and final chapter in my story.

As I entered the old Newspaper House office I could see my much younger news editor wondering what drunken old pal the editor had landed her with but luckily my new sober self soon allayed her worries.

I enjoyed being in the first car to cross the Wainwright ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ when it was finally connected to somewhere and reporting on the construction of the first Clergy Court’ to be built for 600 years at Blackburn Cathedral alongside the development of the glossy new Cathedral Square opposite.

Any hopes of quieter life vanished as I spent many late afternoons watching and occasionally taking part remotely on the daily Covid-19 televised press briefings heavily dependent on my new best contact Blackburn with Darwen public health director Professor Dominic Harrison to make sense of them with an hour to deadline.

Then Hyndburn Council collapsed into chaos as its leader and former Labour MP – once joined at the political hip – fell out big time and the Gaza conflict led to mass defections of angry mainly South Asian heritage Labour councillors in Blackburn and Burnley.

There was the pleasure of reporting Mr Straw’s retirement (with a quote eagerly supplied by his former boss Tony who remember who I was) and the glorious moment at the Accrington brickworks when Chancellor George Osborne went white with shock while shaking my hand as his boss Mr Cameron shouted from behind him: “Bill, how good to see you. Come over and have a chat.”

Another highlight was the Prime Ministerial interview with Theresa May when as I struggled to get her off message and onto issues that mattered to LT readers she asked exasperatedly: “Are you some kind of ambassador for East Lancashire?”

The answer was of course ‘Yes’.

As I approached my retirement date I received some very complimentary words from Mr Straw (which I had hoped for) and a lovely letter from House of Commons Speaker and Chorley MP Sir Lindsay Hoyle (which I did not expect).

I also learned that my old friends from The Notsensibles still play their punk classic “Billy Jacobs at King Georges Hall’ (available on YouTube) in their live set.

I am not sure which I am more proud of.

But together they show what a varied and interesting career I have had in my chosen trade.

Or as a former colleague used to say: “It’s better than a proper job”.