Breaking the Code

by Gyles Brandreth

  Later I was telling Peter Tapsell175 about the PM’s time in the Tea Room and he said, ‘Yes, he’s an attractive man, intelligent and well-intentioned, but he doesn’t frighten anybody, does he? When Margaret came into the Tea Room the teacups rattled.’

  WEDNESDAY 1 JULY 1992

  I was required to be in Committee Room 12 this morning at 10.30 for a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments. I arrived at 10.32 and was given a bollocking by the whip. ‘You have to be here on time in case the opposition force a snap vote.’ There were only two or three opposition in attendance. I have no idea what it was about. The minister spoke, the opposition spokesman spoke, we all voted Aye and that was that. Funny way to run a country.

  At six I went for a briefing with Malcolm Rifkind at the MoD. The whole feel of the place dates from a ’50s Ealing comedy (you expect the tea to be served by an orderly played by Norman Wisdom), but the beady-eyed Secretary of State comes over as both charming and sharp. This was a general canter round the course for the new boys and an update on Yugoslavia. We are going to be sending up to four RAF Hercules mercy missions a day to Sarajevo and the US are sending the marines into the Adriatic. I have a separate session with Malcolm tomorrow on the future of the Cheshires.

  Later I came across Neil Hamilton and Michael Forsyth176 swooning over pictures of Margaret Thatcher in her Baroness’s togs. She was ‘introduced’ into the Lords yesterday. ‘Her Iron Ladyship,’ gurgled Forsyth. ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ cooed Neil. ‘It’s almost too wonderful to bear.’

  THURSDAY 2 JULY 1992

  The good news is that, for the first time since partition, leaders of all the Unionist groups have agreed to have talks with the Irish government on the constitution of Northern Ireland. Paddy Mayhew is hailing it as a breakthrough.

  The meeting with Malcolm Rifkind was here in his room at the House. He sat on a sofa and listened intently, a couple of officials took notes. Malcolm did a lot of nodding, asked a couple of questions, but gave nothing away. Was he just going through the motions? Do representations like this make any difference or do they do what they want to do regardless? I have no idea – but at least I can do a press release for the local papers declaring that I’ve ‘taken the case to the top’.

  The 1922 Committee meets in Room 14 every Thursday at six o’clock. Sir Marcus and the other Committee bigwigs sit on the dais and we backbenchers fill the body of the room. Sitting right at the back, in a single row, are the whips, a line of vultures at the feast. Sir Marcus begins by inviting ‘the whip of duty to give us the business for the coming week’. This is read to us and we note what the whipping is and when we have to be on parade to vote. (Having no ‘pair’ I know I have to be on parade regardless!) Then assorted old boys catch the chairman’s eye and get up to make their point – though not tonight, because tonight we had the PM come in to address us. He spoke from very few notes (if any) and spoke well. It’s a funny sing-song voice he has, and an odd way of pronouncing certain words (wunt for want etc.); he’s not a natural orator, but there’s something about his dogged decency that is rather moving. Anyway, when he’d said his piece, we banged our desks and banged and banged them. I was next to Stephen Milligan. He said, ‘Keep banging. The whips are watching.’

  WEDNESDAY 8 JULY 1992

  Frankie Howerd’s memorial service at St Martin-in-the-Fields. Lots of oohs, aahs and titter ye nots … no … yes … it’s wicked to mock the afflicted. The best moment was Russ Conway accompanying the Graveney School Choir from Tooting singing ‘Three Little Fishes’; the worst Cilla Black – only because she kept bursting into tears and when the performer cries the audience doesn’t. Frank became a regular at Cilla’s house every Sunday – ‘always by invitation, usually his own’. The house was packed. I sat with Ernie Wise and came back with Fergus Montgomery,177 a Pickwickian colleague from Cheshire with a distinct theatrical bent.

  A six o’clock briefing with Peter Lilley who has a wonderful portrait of General de Gaulle on his wall. Peter plans to make errant fathers contribute towards the upkeep of their children. ‘It won’t be universally popular; it’ll bring a lot of unhappy people to our surgeries; but it needs to be done.’ He comes over well. He has a courteous manner and rather a boyish look (given he’s forty-nine), but there’s nothing camp about him – rumours notwithstanding.

  WEDNESDAY 15 JULY 1992

  The first gathering of the National Heritage Select Committee. I’m on it because I got a call a couple of weeks back from the Chief Whip, indicating that, as I was a good boy, a place on a Select Committee could probably be mine – they’re ‘highly coveted’. If you want to be on a Committee you write to the Committee of Selection making your case for consideration. Nominally the Committee then ponders who should go where and then votes you in or not as the case may be. Clearly, though, it’s all sorted out by the whips beforehand – who’ll get in, who won’t and who gets to chair what. At the first meeting, Gerald Kaufman and Paul Channon178 (as the two senior members) danced a little minuet, both suggesting the other was best qualified to be chairman – but, in fact, it had already been agreed that Kaufman would take the chair. He looks like a tortoise without its shell, but he’s elaborately courteous and quite friendly in a spiky sort of way. I think it could be fun. There’s already talk of a trip to Australia.

  At the end-of-term reception at No. 10, the PM looked preoccupied – as well he might: the pound is sagging, the Euronuts are rampant, Bosnia’s in crisis, though what seemed to be exercising him most was the rebellion on the Office Costs Allowance. In the wee small hours (1.00 a.m.) around forty of our side voted with the opposition to increase our secretarial allowance by about £7,000 more than the government wanted. The PM had called for ‘restraint’ and kept shaking his head saying the vote was ‘sending out all the wrong signals’. Of course, we toadies all followed our leader into the lobby, knowing that the rebels and the opposition between them would give us the cash we need anyway. The new amount is £39,960 which – given the size of the mailbag and the level of constituency casework – is hardly excessive. I shall claim the full amount, or near it, and at the same time enjoy the plaudits that come from having voted for restraint.

  SUNDAY 19 JULY 1992

  Forty-eight hours of relentless good works behind me, I’m on the train back to London and supper with Stephen Milligan in Black Lion Lane. I have the papers laid out before me and the story of the day is sensational: David Mellor, our Minister of Fun, caught with his trousers down and his pecker up. The object of his affections, according to The People, not the long-suffering Judith Mellor, but one Antonia de Sancha, thirty-one, ‘an unemployed actress’. What next?

  MONDAY 20 JULY 1992

  Mr Major has rejected David Mellor’s offer to resign. The tabloids are in full cry. The Sun says: ‘The clamour to draw a veil over David Mellor’s extra-marital activities reeks of hypocrisy. As the minister responsible for media issues, he has warned the press “it is drinking in the last chance saloon”. How can he be left in charge of a privacy bill?’ How indeed? It seems The People got its story by means of bugging La Sancha’s Finborough Road love-nest. That has to be an invasion of privacy, doesn’t it? No, according to Bill Hagerty, editor of The People: ‘Mellor has complained he’s been unable to write speeches because he’s too tired. Now we know why … Mr Mellor’s love-life has interfered with his effectiveness as a Cabinet minister – and that’s a matter of legitimate public interest.’

  Stephen [Milligan]’s view is that it’s the recess, the silly season is upon us, it’s only sex, nothing serious (money is what matters), it’ll soon blow over.

  By happy coincidence, there’s a piece in the paper by Cardinal Hume (fifty years a monk) on the joys of celibacy.

  WEDNESDAY 22 JULY 1992

  The PM has given Mellor his ‘full public support’. Mellor is rounding on the Mirror for dragging his wife’s health into the picture. It seems Judith has been in danger of going blind with retinitis pigmentosa and the Mirror takes the
view that the stress of life with David could worsen the effects of the disease. Judith’s mum, 75-year-old Mrs Joan Hall, has also thrown in her helpful two-penny-worth: ‘He is spending the week trying to save his job. He should be trying to save his marriage.’

  John Bratby has died. I’m not surprised, but it’ll be grim for poor Patti. They met (I think) through an ad in Private Eye, but it was a real love-match as well as a working partnership. Patti, whenever we saw her, dressed in tight-fitting leather (at John’s behest), his model and muse as well as homemaker and moral support. We have had some good times at the Cupola and Tower of the Winds. (Isn’t it a fantastic name for a house? John was fantastic – a true original – and I love the Venice pictures of his we have. He was a crafty bugger too: he lured the great and the good – and the odd minor celeb – to come and sit for him by writing them a beguiling letter saying he wanted to capture ‘the individual while we still have a few’ and tempting them with the promise of one of Patti’s ‘bacon sandwiches on the side’. Very few declined the invitation to sit for him and most, of course, then bought the picture.)

  SATURDAY 25 JULY 1992

  David Mellor seems to have got his in-laws back under control. He is pictured with them, and Judith, and the children, down at Thistle Cottage, somewhere in Enid Blyton country, a happy family, united and strong, grinning inanely at the cameras over the garden gate. Mr Major is determined the tabloids won’t drive him out and The Times is riding to the rescue: ‘Mellor should stay’.

  MONDAY 27 JULY 1992

  I went to the Department of National Heritage this afternoon. No sign of the beleaguered Secretary of State, but cameramen at the door just in case. My destination was Room 67a on the second floor where I was meeting with Robert Key,179 amiable cove, MP for Salisbury, Mellor’s deputy, and Minister for Sport. I had gone, at his behest, to brief him on playing fields issues and to learn about the government’s plans to save school sport. The meeting began quite well; we exchanged pleasantries, Mellor was not discussed (officials were present), tea was served, the minister settled back into his armchair, said ‘Fire away’ and then fell fast asleep! The note-taking official didn’t know what to do. Nor did I. So we both pretended the Minister had just closed his eyes the better to concentrate on my argument. I burbled away and several times the hapless, slumbering Minister rallied, threw in an observation, struggled to keep his eyes open and then gave up the unequal fight and slumped back. After half an hour or so of this charade, I got up to go. The Minister got to his feet, rubbing his eyes, and thanked me profusely. ‘That was very helpful. We must keep in touch.’ I trust I left him refreshed.

  MONDAY 10 AUGUST 1992

  The Olympic Games have ended, having totally passed me by. Douglas Hurd has called for UN action to end the horror – ‘the intolerable abuses’ – of the camps in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The holidays are upon us. Mr Major is off to Spain, staying with Tristan Garel-Jones180 (who I can’t make out at all), and we’re off to France, staying with Colin and Rosie [Sanders] at La Dulcinea, St Paul de Vence.

  FRIDAY 21 AUGUST 1992

  We’re driving back from Verona to Nice.

  La Boheme was a wow, the Due Torri comme il faut (or Italian equivalent), but judging from the English papers we’ve just bought the world is in turmoil. The UN is halting aid to Sarajevo after one of our cargo planes was threatened. We’re sending 1,800 troops to Bosnia and imposing an air exclusion zone over southern Iraq to protect the Shia Muslims. The Cabinet’s defence and overseas policy committee has been summoned to Downing Street for emergency talks. Mr Major has returned from Spain, Mr Hurd has broken off his walking holiday in France, Malcolm Rifkind is down from Scotland. Norman Lamont has been left in peace in Italy (the Chancellor jetting back for crisis talks might unsettle the markets) and Michael Heseltine has been allowed to continue his South Pacific idyll: he is studying the flora and fauna of Fiji.

  LATER

  We’re back at La Dulcinea. Colin is down below in his temperature-controlled cellar looking out a suitable pink champagne. We are going to be raising our glasses to the hapless Duchess of York. She has been staying on the other side of our valley, enjoying a summer break with her friend and financial adviser John Bryan. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to them, lurking up in the hills, was an eagle-eyed jumbo-lensed freelance photographer who has taken a series of gobsmackingly lurid snaps of Fergie, topless, cavorting with her buck at the poolside, tickling his fancy and – wait for it – sucking his toes. (This is not something Michèle has ever thought of doing – at least, so far as I know…) Anyway, these candid holiday snaps have now been relayed right round the globe and (courtesy of the Daily Mirror) have even landed on the breakfast table at Balmoral. Poor Fergie. Poor Queen. (And to think it was only ten years ago that Princess Alexandra’s lady-in-waiting, Mona Mitchell CVO, told Michèle, so pompously, ‘I am afraid divorcees cannot be presented to Her Royal Highness.’)

  WEDNESDAY 26 AUGUST 1992

  Fergie has left Balmoral – probably for the last time. Terry Major, the Prime Minister’s brother, has been hit by the recession and can’t afford his annual holiday to Bognor. Bugger Bognor: the real news is that Europe’s banks are joining forces to defend sterling and the government is signalling its readiness to raise interest rates to maintain the pound’s value within the ERM. Ignoring the storm clouds, we set off on Colin and Rosie’s boat, the Snow Queen, for a very self-indulgent lobster lunch. In the harbour we passed Robert Maxwell’s yacht; it is smaller than I imagined, but I don’t think he could have toppled over the ship’s rail by accident. Either he jumped or he was pushed.

  THURSDAY 27 AUGUST 1992

  We flew into Heathrow to learn that Saddam Hussein has moved jet fighters to airfields just above the 32nd parallel and George Bush has declared a no-fly zone just below it. We learn too that Norman Lamont is standing firm: ‘There are going to be no devaluations, no leaving the ERM. We are absolutely committed to the ERM. It is at the centre of our policy.’ But what’s really got the nation’s juices going in our absence has been the revelation of an intimate telephone conversation between the Princess of Wales and a man called James. It was picked up by a radio ham (a retired bank manager from Abingdon) on New Year’s Eve 1989 and is now available for all to hear, courtesy of The Sun’s ‘royal hotline’. More than 40,000 have tuned in already – and I met one of them tonight, at Chester Cathedral, at the Cheshire County Youth Theatre’s performance of The Lark. He said he hadn’t listened to it all, but he was convinced it was genuine.

  FRIDAY 4 SEPTEMBER 1992

  I saw the Prime Minister last night. He came to Eaton181 to lend his support for Manchester’s Olympic bid. He looked pretty unkempt and wild-eyed. I’m not surprised. Lamont has announced that he’s planning to borrow about £7.25 billion (billion) to defend the pound and my maverick neighbour Nick Winterton182 is calling for ‘an urgent reappraisal of government policy’. ‘The economy’s on the brink of collapse, Britain’s industries are being sacrificed on the altar of Euro-dogma. Let’s forget Maastricht and leave the ERM.’ Could he be right? The PM was on automatic pilot: genial but a million miles away. He says he’s going to be giving a big speech next week, underlining our total commitment to Maastricht and the ERM.

  FRIDAY 11 SEPTEMBER 1992

  The Sun’s serialisation of the de Sancha story has been a joy – if you like that sort of thing. We’ve had all the gory details: the mattress on the floor, the dressing-up, the toe-sucking … (What is this with the toe-sucking? Clearly, I’ve led a very sheltered life.) Mr Major is still standing by his man – by his men, indeed. At yesterday Cabinet meeting (the first since July) the PM paid tribute to the Chancellor’s ‘great skill’ and around the table they chorused ‘Hear! Hear!’

  Last night the PM addressed the Scottish CBI and told industry to ‘bite the bullet’: ‘We will stay in the exchange-rate mechanism of the European monetary system, whatever happens.’

  It’s strange, we’re living in these momentous times, I am
a Member of Parliament and yet I have no impact on these events, no input, nothing to offer. If I don’t support the government’s line to the letter, I’m rocking the boat. If I relay the dismay felt by so many of the smaller businesses up here, I wouldn’t necessarily be reflecting the consensus of local opinion (opinion is divided) and I don’t believe it would make any difference anyway. The policy is settled. The government is pursuing it. That’s that. To have shared my misgivings with poor exhausted Mr Major when he was up here last week would simply have served to depress the poor man further. So each to his own: Major and Lamont struggle to save the pound, while Brandreth looks forward to a typical backbencher’s constituency weekend: Saturday – the jumble sale at St Mary’s, lunch at Abbeyfield House, tea with the Civic Trust, supper with the agent; Sunday – the League of Friends charity walk (9.30 start), lunch with the Bangladeshi Community, the war widows’ service at Blacon cemetery. All worthwhile, some of it enjoyable, but I’m not sure it’s what I expected.