Demobbed, but not down

By Nyta Mann BBC News Online political correspondent

Michael Meacher was never as busy in government as he is now that he's been bumped down to the backbenches.

He has spent the weeks since Tony Blair reshuffled him out of the job of environment minister ricocheting from meeting to seminar and back again, "all organised by myself around my own chosen agenda, rather than having to be a government hack".

He declares (or should that be warns?) that he intends "to spread my activities around a whole range of political activities about which I care deeply but have not been able to participate in for 29 years, because I've been on the front bench since 1974 with a gap of only two years in the middle".

Twenty-nine years? No wonder he describes himself as "demob happy".

He has just been appointed vice-chair of the left-wing think tank Catalyst, headed by Lord Hattersley. He will also, he says, be making trouble on the back benches - not his explicit aim but he knows that "for some ultra-loyalists, anyone who steps out of line is trouble-making".

The ostensible reason for going to war, the public reason, has turned out to be uncertain, unreal, fantasy - and we're still not absolutely sure what the intelligence services actually did say Michael Meacher

Mr Meacher is now a member of the unofficial, informal ex-ministers' club. They don't plot, he insists, "but what we actually do is support each other. I intend to support Frank Dobson over foundation hospitals next week, and I support Robin Cook in what he's been saying about the Iraq dossier and the intelligence services."

War justification a 'fantasy'

On the war with Iraq, Mr Meacher is among those who feels he and others in government were misled.

"The ostensible reason for going to war, the public reason, has turned out to be uncertain, unreal, fantasy - and we're still not absolutely sure what the intelligence services actually did say," he says.

Where are those elusive weapons of mass destruction?, he wants to know. At the time he believed that the Iraqi dictator had them because: "I believed what the intelligence services and the government were saying."

"Tony Blair made speeches in which he said that with great categorical certainty, and who am I to disbelieve that?" he says of the long build-up to the war.

I don't think governments ever have a right to automatically expect trust. You have to earn it. All the time Michael Meacher

"Whose fault was that?" he now demands. "Who over-egged the information?"

Recent poll ratings suggesting trust in the government falling away are, Mr Meacher believes, closely related to current questions over the so-called "dodgy dossier" on Iraq and the "launched in 45 minutes" claim in an earlier dossier.

Crisis in trust

In the context of the present Alastair Campbell vs BBC row over those claims, the government's outraged presumption that its word should be accorded greater weight than the word of others is no good, he insists: "I don't think governments ever have a right to automatically expect trust. You have to earn it. All the time."

Mr Meacher believes the corrosion of trust "radiates to every other aspect of policy, including genetic modification - and I think the government's trustworthiness on this issue is quite low."

Later this year a government report is expected to prepare the way for GM foods to be sold on supermarket shelves.

Mr Meacher, who for years was the minister closest to the brief, believes that decision - driven in part by Mr Blair's enthusiasm - would be a big mistake.

"We want more time for tests. That's a totally respectable, honest, frank and correct scientific position to take," he says.

"Tony is someone who is very keen on science, there's no doubt about that," according to the Oldham MP. "But he has an instinctive support for science as though the rest of us don't, that's what's irritating."

"I have just as much respect for science as he does, but we live in a democracy and public acceptability is very important. Also, which science? Corporate science? I'm keen on science too, but we don't know enough yet to commit ourselves to GM foods."

The great survivor

It came as little surprise to Mr Meacher that when the reshuffle came, his number was up. He has been tipped for the chop at just about every single reshuffle since New Labour won power in 1997, despite his acknowledged mastery of a detailed, technical brief which has won him plaudits across party lines.

His old Labour credentials probably meant his cards were marked as soon as Tony Blair became Labour's leader. But he relishes the fact that he outlasted New Labour favourites like Peter Mandelson and Alan Milburn. Their trajectory was higher; his stretched further.

What was the secret of his survival?

"Within days of first being appointed, some of my closest friends were telling me I'd soon be out," he admits. "Why I lasted as long as I did, I have no idea."