Breaking the Code

by Gyles Brandreth

  WEDNESDAY 16 SEPTEMBER 1992

  Last night we went to see Simon [Cadell] in Travels with my Aunt in Richmond. He’s wonderful, but it’s one of those pieces that’s an ‘entertainment’ rather than a play and it left us (Michèle and me) a little unsatisfied. We didn’t say any of this to Simon, who looks shattered but is happy with the way it’s going. He has high hopes for it. I doubt it will be commercial.183

  Today we drove to Stratford, gripped all the way by the radio reports of chaos in the markets. Interest rates went from 10 to 12 to 15 per cent as poor old Badger [Lamont] struggled to save the pound. We’ve just been watching the humiliation on the box. Blanched, puffy-eyed, the poor bugger made as dignified a fist of it as he could. At least, he didn’t fluff his lines. The adventure has cost billions and the end result is that the pound in New York has fallen to DM 2.66, a post-war low. The PM has not surfaced, but filmed going in to see him were Geoffrey Johnson-Smith184 and Stephen Milligan. Why them?

  THURSDAY 17 SEPTEMBER 1992

  On the front page of The Times Anatole Kaletsky185 lets rip: ‘With one bound we are free. After two years of pointless self-destruction, common sense has finally prevailed. A million people have lost their jobs. Hundreds of thousands have been made homeless or bankrupt. The spirit of British enterprise, so agonisingly reborn in the ’80s after two generations of catatonic slumber, has been all but crushed by high interest rates designed to punish initiative and risk and to reward idleness and caution. But finally the pound is out of the European exchange-rate mechanism and Britain is free to fashion its economic destiny.’

  Stephen tells me he was summoned to see the PM simply because he was a backbencher who happened to be around and the boss wanted ‘to settle the troops’, show his steady hand at the tiller, prove to us other ranks that – though under fire – as ever he was cool, calm and collected. Stephen was excited, delighted to be in at the kill, but depressed by the outcome. He still believes in the principle of the ERM and says commentators like Kaletsky are way over the top.

  ‘Inflation is down and the recession was upon us in any event.’

  ‘But hasn’t our policy made it worse?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  We’re off to a matinee of The Merry Wives which means I’ve not got time for a proper report on the latest twist in the Mellor saga. Mona Bauwens, thirty-one, daughter of some PLO hotshot, is suing The People for libel and the hearing of the case has revealed that Mellor and family holidayed with Bauwens in Marbella during the Gulf war – and Bauwens paid the Mellors’ air fares. What’s more, Mellor has been in the habit of calling on the fair Mona ‘on a social basis in the daytime without his wife – for a cup of tea or coffee.’ For the tabloids this is a lot more fun than poor old Badger and the ERM. ‘I had Mellor – for tea’; ‘Tea and sympathy with Mr Mellor’; and my favourite: ‘Mellor’s Mona Tea-ser’. Watch this space.

  SATURDAY 19 SEPTEMBER 1992

  The lines are hot. Parliament has been recalled for next Thursday. And we’re getting a clearer picture of the week’s events. It seems the Treasury knew the game was up for sterling by Tuesday lunchtime. Because of the ERM rules there was no question of throwing in the towel before 4.00 p.m., the Bank of England’s official closing time. But we could have pulled out on Tuesday night. Instead Lamont and Major decided to go for broke – to travel the last mile – and pour £15/20 billion of our foreign currency reserves into their doomed defence of our position in the ERM. £15/20 billion down the drain!

  What happens to Norman now? I like him. He’s amusing – but the truth is he’s expendable. There was always something a bit bruised about him: now he’s seriously damaged goods. The main plank of the government’s economic policy has turned to matchwood. If Norman goes now, he shoulders the blame, we draw a line and move on. But from all I hear he has no intention of going quietly – ‘Defiant Lamont intent on riding out the storm’ – and gallant Mr Major has saluted his Chancellor’s ‘courage and common sense’. If Norman goes, Major can regroup and soldier on. If Norman stays, the stench of failure will stick to the government as a whole and the PM and the Chancellor in particular. We loyal footsoldiers won’t smell too sweet either.

  MONDAY 21 SEPTEMBER 1992

  Major is struggling. Lamont is struggling. Mellor looks doomed. The French have said Yes to Maastricht – by a whisker. And we are just in from an eccentric evening at Poulton Hall, Poulton Lancelyn, with Caroline Lancelyn Green, whom I haven’t seen since she played my Cinderella at Oxford twenty-four years ago. Her husband Scirard’s family have lived on this same plot of land on the Wirral since 1064. The house is a monument to sixteen generations of delightfully dotty Lancelyns. Scirard’s father’s desk is as he left it on the day he died – the post still unopened, the copy of Punch in just the same position on the floor. Scirard’s brother has converted his quarters into a precise replica of Holmes’ rooms at 221B Baker Street. Michèle said, ‘Given the present, maybe living in the past is the answer.’

  THURSDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 1992

  There was a tangible sense of excitement in the Tea Room. There’s nothing like a crisis for getting the adrenalin going. ‘Isn’t this fun?’ squeaked [Michael] Fabricant.186 Others, like Winterton, who take themselves seriously (and, bless them, think others take them seriously too), were being rather more pompous about it. But no question: it’s been a day of high stakes, high drama. And anti-climax. The PM survived, but he didn’t do well. John Smith was magnificent: dry, droll, devastating. We sat glumly and looked on as the poor PM went through the motions, coping as best he could with the sniping from the sceptics (the usual gang: John Wilkinson,187 Michael Spicer,188 Nick Budgen), attempting to rally his troops, but, frankly, failing. A few brave souls intervened on Smith (Phil Gallie189 – good on him; Geoffrey Dickens; Stephen [Milligan]; Judith Chaplin190 – but he wasn’t to be thrown. He was on a roll and it was masterful. Ted Heath was on something of a roll too: ‘I should like to congratulate the Leader of the Opposition on his appointment. He has carried out his duties this afternoon – rather well, in fact – but now we must turn to serious business.’ There was plenty of banter with Skinner chirruping away across the aisle. Heath was telling us consideration of the future of the ERM will call for more than a single day’s summit: ‘We’ve suffered too much from short summits, most of which are taken up with lunch and dinner.’ Skinner: ‘You’ve had a few!’ Heath: ‘Yes. And I’ve been trying to lose weight ever since.’ The truth is he’s gross.

  At 4.20 Paddy Ashdown got to his feet, the whole House groaned, got to its feet and set off for tea. And while I made for a rendezvous with a teacake, the beleaguered PM went to his room behind the Speaker’s chair for a less happy encounter with the unfortunate Mr Mellor. You can only feel sorry for the PM: on a day when he should have been concentrating 100 per cent on making the speech of his life he’s been having to waste time on Mellor. Does he stay? Does he go? Can we save him? The Tea Room has decided: he goes, no question. Sir Marcus [Fox] made the point, of course, that had Mellor gone weeks ago, we’d have been spared a summer of silly headlines and the PM could indeed have concentrated 100 per cent on his speech today. Anyway, Sir Marcus telephoned Mellor this morning and gave him the black spot. It’s all over – bar the ‘personal statement’. That’s scheduled for 11.00 a.m. tomorrow.

  FRIDAY 25 SEPTEMBER 1992

  The wind-ups last night were pretty rowdy. Gordon Brown191 did well. Norman didn’t do too badly. Anyway, we cheered him lustily and did our duty in the division lobbies. The motion to ‘support the economic policy of Her Majesty’s government’ (this week’s version) was endorsed by 322 to 296. There were some predictable abstentions.

  Today’s proceedings began at 9.30 with the debate on foreign policy – ‘recent and proposed deployments in the Gulf and Yugoslavia’. It was Jack Cunningham’s192 first outing as shadow Foreign Secretary. The view seems to be that he’s got the job because he’s got the height, the suit, the demeanour, the glasses, if not the acumen. I
like him. He’s affable, one of their lot who gets on well with our lot. Of course, he’s up against a Rolls-Royce. Douglas was as smooth and impressive as ever. I sat next to Geoffrey Johnson-Smith who muttered, ‘Thank God for the grown-ups.’

  Naturally, what the children had come to see wasn’t Hurd at the despatch box: it was Mellor at the gallows. By custom, a personal statement interrupts proceedings, is heard in silence and takes ten minutes. As eleven approached, the tricoteuses dribbled in. We looked sorrowful, we put on our funeral faces, we wanted to show we cared. But in our hearts … (Stephen [Milligan] said to me afterwards: ‘Remember the Chinese saying? “There is no pleasure so great as watching a good friend fall off the roof.”’)

  At 11.01 Mellor was on his feet. It was an odd performance, jerky, uneven, conversational (not an oratorical flourish in sight), by turn combative and apologetic, honest, funny, devoid of self-pity but at the same time curiously unsympathetic. ‘Having grown heartily sick of my private life myself, I could hardly expect others to take a more charitable view.’ He’s been a minister for eleven years and he was certainly perfect casting for the job at Heritage. The job was made for him – literally. He hadn’t felt, the Prime Minister hadn’t felt, that ‘in this day and age’ his affair was a resigning matter – ‘sorry and distressed though I was at the revelations and despite how sordid and cheap it must have looked’. He said he was going because he couldn’t expect his colleagues to put up any longer with the ceaseless flow of stories about him in the tabloid press. ‘Finally, as I leave the warmth of government office for the icy wastes of the back benches, I want the House to know there is a precedent for this: Captain Oates was born and raised in my constituency.’

  At 11.11 it was all over.

  LATER

  Who goes to National Heritage now? The buzz is either John Redwood193 or Tristan Garel-Jones. My prediction: a safe motherly type, the Prime Minister’s friend, Emily Blatch. I’ve just been talking to Tom King194 and we agreed the one good thing to be said about the Mellor debacle is that it’s covered the PM’s poor showing last night and wiped the ERM fiasco clean off the front pages.

  MONDAY 28 SEPTEMBER 1992

  Lunch with the Prime Minister. Because No. 10 is being rewired and double-glazed (not to keep the heat in: to keep the bombs out), the PM has decamped and is now ensconced halfway up Whitehall in Admiralty House. There are ten of us for lunch, eight assorted backbenchers, the Chief Whip and the PM. He’s down, feels it, shows it. There’s no bounce. He may be letting us see this deliberately, to remind us that he’s human, to take us into his confidence, to make us realise he’s just like us. But we don’t want to be led by someone who’s just like us. We don’t want a leader who is ordinary. We want a leader who is extraordinary – and decent, determined, disciplined, convincing as he is, JM isn’t that. The party is profoundly divided, our economic policy is discredited, we’re on the brink of being dragged into a Balkan war, and the PM talked about the Citizen’s Charter!

  Of course, he believes in it, passionately, believes it will change the quality of life of ordinary people. Inevitably, though we all must have thought it, not one of us dared say ‘No one gives a toss about the Citizen’s Charter, Prime Minister!’ All along we skirted the real issues. He did talk about Europe. Maastricht is an international obligation. We are committed to it: we must and we will deliver. Our problem is that we have a majority of twenty-nine and rebellion in the ranks. What’s to be done?

  During lunch I said nothing. I am aspiring to emulate Iain Macleod’s behaviour at Cabinet meetings: ‘When he had a point to make he made it with brevity, relevance and force. If he had nothing new to contribute, he did not speak unless invited to do so.’195

  During lunch I said nothing, but unfortunately as we got up to go and made our way across the room I found myself walking in step with the PM and felt obliged to say something.

  ‘Peter Brooke is a brilliant appointment,’196 I burbled.

  The PM paused and looked at me.

  ‘The arts people, the heritage lobby, they’ll be relieved, I mean pleased, you know, under the circumstances.’ On I went, like an idiot.

  His eyes were hard.

  My mouth was dry. ‘Of course, it shouldn’t have happened. Terrible tragedy. Poor David. But Peter Brooke’s going to be excellent. Excellent. Congratulations. Well done you.’

  He looked at me with complete contempt and said nothing. I put out my hand to shake his, and then remembered we don’t shake hands, and laughed nervously, and left.

  TUESDAY 29 SEPTEMBER 1992

  Bryan Gould has left the shadow Cabinet. He is set to lead Labour’s sixty or so Eurosceptics in opposition to his party’s support for Maastricht. This has to be good for us, emphasising that there are divisions on all sides. Unfortunately it’s evident our divisions go to the heart of government. Michael Howard is now saying openly that the treaty needs to be made ‘more acceptable’ to the British people while Tristan Garel-Jones, our Minister for Europe, is adamant that renegotiation of any kind is simply not on the cards. (Garel-Jones is very odd: supremely self-confident, one of those who denies he knows anything to imply he knows everything, amusing but not comfortable to be with. Whenever I find myself in the Tea Room with him all we talk about is bullfighting, about which I know nothing and he knows a great deal. He’s going to write a book on the subject. I am grateful to him for introducing me to a charming phrase to describe the southern Europeans: ‘the folk who live below the olive line’.) I am on my way to meet some of them now.

  LATER

  If they want them, MPs get two expenses paid trips per year to Brussels or Strasbourg. I understand one or two of our colleagues use this facility to take a flying trip over for a good lunch. Stephen [Milligan] and I, of course, have come to Brussels on serious business. We did get lunch, an excellent one, in our elegant downtown embassy, courtesy of our charming ambassador, beady-eyed Sir John Kerr,197 but we’ve had good sessions too with the Danish ambassador, with Delors’ chef de cabinet, with Sir Leon Brittan.198 The bottom line is that there’s a European momentum out here that’s totally at odds with the mood back home. Never mind the sceptics, my middle-class middle-of-the-road constituents believe in the single market and are comfortable with the general idea of being part of Europe, at the heart of Europe even. But that’s about it. These guys believe in the European dream, they believe in a united Europe, they believe in what they’re doing! The Danes, apparently, will come round to the idea of Maastricht. We shouldn’t worry about that. So long as Mr Major isn’t blown off course by the fringe minority, all will be well. Leon, who has a quaint way with him (a cross between camp and damp), has evidently gone native.

  TUESDAY 6 OCTOBER 1992

  This year I’ve got the measure of the party conference. You could come on Monday, stay till Friday, take in four days of debates, a dozen fringe meetings, a hundred receptions offering sandwiches and warm white wine. What the cognoscenti do is come for a couple of nights (max), show a face, take in only those parties where champagne is guaranteed, and make sure that you have accepted a worthwhile dinner or two so that at least in the evening you can sit down for an hour and be properly fed.

  The week did not begin well (‘Shares plunge in Major’s new black Monday – free-fall pound hits all-time low’) and it seems to be getting worse. The talk of the town is Norman Tebbit’s vulgar grand-standing barn-storming performance on Europe. He savaged Maastricht, poured scorn of monetary union, patronised the PM (‘I trust, Prime Minister, you will stand by your Chancellor. After all, it wasn’t his decision to join the ERM!’), and brought the conference (or a good part of it) to its feet roaring for more. He stood there, arms aloft, acknowledging the ovation, Norman the conqueror.

  I saw Norman Fowler afterwards, ‘Not too helpful, was it? I don’t think he’d have appreciated it when he was party chairman. Hey-diddle-de-dee.’ Douglas Hurd was very gloomy in his civilised world-weary way: ‘We are going to break ourselves apart if we carry on like
this. We won’t last the parliament.’ I know he’s suffered for the cause of the party (his wife the more so), so we can’t say it out loud, but I think there’s something quite nasty about Tebbit, something mean and twisted.

  THURSDAY 8 OCTOBER 1992

  Last night, at the Old Ship Hotel, we gave our little drinks party for the activists. We shared it with the Goodlads and Jonathan Aitken199 – who is tall and handsome and charming and distant. (Talking of the tall and the distant, Heseltine stalked past me in a corridor at the Grand. I flattened myself against the wall like a good Fillipino chambermaid. He glanced towards me, didn’t flicker, stalked on. But, but – on the conference platform he’s unbeatable: ‘If John Smith is the answer, then what is the question?’ They lapped it up. They don’t like what he is, but they love what he does.)

  I’m just in from Norman Lamont’s speech. It didn’t work. Damp squib, didn’t remotely fizzle. He’s promising a tight squeeze on public spending and an inflation target of 2 per cent. This may be laudable, but in Chester they think we’re obsessed with inflation. They’d be quite happy to see a little more inflation if only we could get the economy moving again. I’m chairing the Family Heart Association lunch and then I’m sneaking back to town. Nobody will ever know. (‘Or care,’ says Michèle.)

  FRIDAY 9 OCTOBER 1992

  The great Denholm Elliott200 has died (Aids, alcohol and ulcers). Willy Brandt201 has died. (I remember when we had him as a guest at TV-am. I don’t think anyone knew who he was. He sat bewildered on the sofa as Anne and Nick chorused ‘Here’s Willy!’ as though he was going to be our replacement for Roland Rat.) Leslie Crowther,202 bless him, is struggling for his life. But the news from Brighton (as viewed on the box in our bedroom in Barnes) is that, on the fifth day of the Conservative Party conference, the PM rose again. I have just been watching the PM and he’s been magnificent – so reasonable, so reassuring, so right! There wasn’t anything new, but the way he did it worked. He played the patriotic card for all he could – we mustn’t be left ‘scowling in the wings’: history requires us to take our place at the heart of Europe where we will best be able to look after Britain’s interests and at the same time resist the impetus for a federal Europe. There weren’t any fine phrases, but that didn’t matter. Today it’s his ordinariness that makes him extraordinary.