Breaking the Code

by Gyles Brandreth

  WEDNESDAY 15 FEBRUARY 1995

  Newt Gingrich’s ‘pollster’ is in town.464 We’ve just had supper with him and he’s a joy. He’s called Frank Lemt, an unlikely-looking specimen, in his twenties, sneakers, jeans, backpack. We picked him up in Central Lobby, squeezed into the ministerial car (Stephen in front, me, Danny, Frank squashed in the back) and sped across to Pasta Prego in Beauchamp Place. As we went, Frank offered his thumbnail analysis of our position: ‘You are in a fast car driving towards a brick wall. You can either stop and get out or you can continue as you are, heading for that wall, foot on the gas. If you stop and get out you might have a chance. If you don’t, then take my word for it: you’re heading for (theatrical pause) o-bli-vion!’

  Over the meal he talked non-stop and the essence of his message is we’re doomed because a) we’re a shambles, b) we’re divided, c) nobody knows what we’re about, d) we’ve been in power for seventeen years. Because the electorate is ungrateful, our only hope is to find a way of wiping out the past. We need to create a clean slate and make ourselves credible again. As one of the authors/architects of Newt’s ‘Contract with America’, he proposed that we should come up with a UK equivalent:

  On 1 March your Prime Minister gets up in the House of Commons and says, ‘On 1 March next year there will be a general election. Between now and then, this is what my government will deliver.’ Make the goals deliverable – inflation at a certain level, x more policeman on the beat, y more nurses, z more teachers in schools. Because you have set out specific targets everyone will focus on what you deliver during the year. Your past record will become irrelevant. At the end of the 365 days you have the election. Your Prime Minister says, ‘This year I promised you so and so and I delivered. Next year I’m promising you and such and I can deliver again. Trust me.’

  We were enchanted by his manner and there’s more than something in what he’s saying. ‘Look, it worked for Newt.’

  Stephen grinned, ‘I’m not sure it’s a very British way of doing things.’

  ‘Have you got another way out?’ enquired Frank. We hadn’t. ‘Remember the alternative,’ he said cheerily. ‘It’s o-bli-vion!’

  THURSDAY 16 FEBRUARY 1995

  The Prime Minister is telling ministers to pull themselves together and ‘toe the line’. Over breakfast Stephen, Danny and I worked up a draft memo to send to the PM. It’s Frank’s ‘Contract with Britain’, but knowing the PM’s commitment to his charters (aaargh!) we’ve called our paper ‘The Charter for Government’:

  1. The problem: we’ve been in power for seventeen years; dissatisfactions have accumulated; there’s a perception we’ve not kept our promises.

  2. The solution: draw a line under both past failures and past successes (the electorate isn’t grateful) and only talk about the future; make ourselves accountable for the promises we make.

  3. The proposition: a Charter for Government – a one-year programme of deliverable promises on which we are prepared to be judged.

  4. Stage One: announce the preparation of the Charter at Central Council; launch a period of consultation: ‘listening to Britain’, letting the nation decide the priorities. Do this by means of a) formal polling using focus groups; b) open meetings around the country with ministers, MPs etc., where they don’t speak, they listen; c) policy panels based on the manifesto groups now being set up which would also take evidence from public and experts.

  5. Stage Two: the consultation period lasts three months; the outcomes are translated into the Charter for Government unveiled on Day One of the party conference in October – a programme of specific deliverable promises with the promise that we will be accountable for the success of our delivery at the end of the year. Each minister’s conference speech centres on what their department has to deliver.

  6. The idea is to look to the future and make us seem responsive and accountable.

  The alternative … o-bli-vion!

  MONDAY 20 FEBRUARY 1995

  Michael Foot465 (still wearing that same donkey jacket) has reassured us, ‘I was never a Soviet agent.’ Nicholas Fairbairn has died ‘from liver complications’, aged sixty-one. ‘Nicky liked his dram’ is how the obituarists are putting it. The poor man was a sot, watching him stumbling about the corridors here, pitiable. People like Ancram and Lord James say, ‘Ah, you should have known Nicky in his prime.’ Even knowing him in his decrepitude there were still flashes of brilliance that managed to fight their way through the alcoholic haze. He listed his recreations in Who’s Who: ‘making love, ends meet and people laugh.’

  Excellent session with Stephen and John K. at the DNH. We’ve actually got a credible (and creditable) programme of policy announcements/initiatives to set out over the next three months. March: the tourism document on the 1st; the big heritage speech on the 8th (opening up the listing system); sponsorship and the arts on the 29th. April: privacy, film and the future of the BBC. May: the Fundamental Expenditure Review, working title, ‘Growing the Audience’ (could be worse, could be better), and the big Youth and Sport launch on the 23rd. Plus some odds and sods: Stonehenge and the private finance initiative, the glories of Greenwich, the first dollops of lottery distribution.

  Yes, we should have got to grips with this months ago, but at least it’s happening now. And Stephen has agreed to a series of set-piece speeches on key areas, speeches that will contain both commitment and (wait for it) passion!

  WEDNESDAY 22 FEBRUARY 1995

  The PM was on a roll tonight, exhilarated by the triumph of the London-Dublin framework document. There’s going to be a Northern Ireland assembly (with PR); a North–South body with members from both the assembly and the Irish Parliament; an end to the Irish constitutional claim to NI and changes to our legislation to give the people of NI the option of staying part of the UK or voting for a united Ireland. Paisley is ranting that Major has ‘sold out the Union’, Willie Ross says it’s ‘unworkable’, but in the Chamber and the Tea Room it went down well.

  The PM began the day in Belfast, then did his statement to the House, then ended up at No. 10 for our reception for the London arts community. We were fearful that with all the Irish excitement he might have to give us short shrift. In the event, though he was late, when he arrived the adrenalin was overflowing and he was at his absolute best: there was energy, easy charm, a sense of purpose. I said to him, ‘This is one of those days when you realise why you came into this, isn’t it?’ He grinned: ‘Yes.’ Then he checked himself, ‘There’s a long way to go, but at the end … just think of the prize.’

  He stood in front of the fireplace on a little footstool and gave a gem of a speech. He talked about the artists who have made Downing Street what it is – he talked about the craftsmen, the furniture makers, the painters. He thanked and celebrated the artists in the room, buttered them up like nobody’s business. But they sensed he really meant it – and I think he did. It was exactly the kind of speech Stephen should have been making for months. It was wonderful – impressive and moving. He spoke without notes (I imagine the stuff about the pictures etc. is part of his set-piece Welcome to Downing Street routine) and the effect was everything we could have wanted. I wheeled Hugh Grant over to meet Norma and the light flirtation (on both sides) was charming to behold.

  At the ridiculous end of the spectrum I found myself in a corner of the green drawing room with a moist-eyed Andrew Lloyd Webber who, not having any idea who I was, said ‘Are you coming to Antigua for the weekend?’ Lady Lloyd Webber turned to Nicholas Lloyd and Eve Pollard and cooed, ‘Oh do. It’s just the Lloyd Webbers and the Frosts and the Saatchis – the home team.’

  Donald Sinden was funny – as always. He asked Richard Eyre466 if it’s true that Harriet Walter is to play Hamlet at the National. Before Eyre could answer, Don went on: ‘I understand you approached Paul Scofield to play Claudius, but he said, “No – have you tried Miriam Margolyes?”’

  Supper with David Willetts. I don’t think he’s enjoying the Whips’ Office. I think he th
inks a lot of it’s very silly and he may be insufficiently clubable for their taste.

  Under cover of the framework document, we’ve slipped out an announcement on prescription charges. They’re going up 50p to £5.25.

  MONDAY 27 FEBRUARY 1995

  I took Stephen to Buckingham Palace to see Prince Philip. Not much was achieved. HRH was running late. We waited in his study – it’s very Peter Scott, long shelves of books, furniture with a distinct ’50s Erkalion feel. Just before HRH appeared, the young equerry (who I didn’t know) came in and got us to stand side by side at a certain angle at a specific point (yes, a precise spot) a third of the way into the room. He marshalled us into this awkward receiving line and we stood there like Tweedledum and Tweedledee awaiting the arrival of the King of Hearts. The whole set-up is ludicrous – but the D of E is a good man and he never stops wanting to make a positive contribution. We didn’t get very far on privacy. Stephen was fairly frank and said there isn’t much the government can do – ‘or will do’ I chirruped. HRH then set out his stall on competitive sport. It’s a hobby-horse and he rides it well and convincingly. What he says about the value of team games is exactly right and exactly what Sproatie and the PM want to see in the White Paper. In fact, it would probably have been better to take Sproat. Heigh-ho. Anyway, HRH promised to send us all sorts of thoughts and to introduce Stephen to anyone he’d like to meet and Stephen mumbled the right sort of responses and nodded charmingly until the equerry, who had popped his head nervously around the door a couple of times, returned wide-eyed with anxiety: ‘I’m sorry Sir, but Her Majesty is waiting.’

  I’ve just returned from No. 11. The Chancellor was late. He’d been in a huddle with Eddie George467 in the wake of the Barings collapse. Ken’s line: ‘It’s bad, but I’m not sure it’s as bad as Eddie seems to think.’

  I said, ‘What exactly happened?’

  Ken laughed, ‘I’m not entirely sure.’

  It seems a Barings trader, aged twenty-six, managed to lose around £600 million trading in derivatives without anybody knowing. ‘It’s beyond belief.’ ‘You’d have thought so.’ I love the way Ken chuckles in the face of adversity. Ever-ready Eddie and his boys spent the weekend feverishly trying to put together a rescue package, but without success – so bang goes Britain’s oldest bank, 4,000 employees have lost their jobs, the pound’s got the jitters, an international banking crisis is on the cards, but our admirable Chancellor is still chortling. He’s irresistible.

  WEDNESDAY 1 MARCH 1995

  The roller-coaster ride continues. Tonight we survived – with a majority of five. We knew the UUs and the Paisley boys would exact their revenge by voting with Labour. What we didn’t expect was that Norman Lamont would vote against us. I suspect his plan was to abstain, but he was tipped into voting the way he did by Douglas Hurd. I saw it happen. During Douglas’s smooth-as-alabaster wind-up Norman intervened to ask if the government believes monetary union will lead to political union. Douglas side-stepped the question, but couldn’t resist a little jesting at Norman’s expense: ‘My RHF is one of the great experts on the subject because, with the Prime Minister, it was he who negotiated our opt-out. I have always admired the skill with which they did that. I was sitting in admiration in an adjacent room at the time.’ As the laughter rolled round him, Norman’s face turned to thunder. He thought, ‘I will not be mocked. I will be revenged on the whole pack of you.’

  And indeed he might have been had not five of the whipless wonders voted with us and five abstained. We wheeled in our sick, including Geoffrey Dickens, who has lost so much weight and looks like death. He is a lovely man and, quite rightly, the PM sought him out to give him a grateful squeeze.

  MONDAY 13 MARCH 1995

  Benet’s twentieth birthday. Our little celebration lunch in Cambridge yesterday was really good. Blair has replaced Clause IV with a new creed that promises to put ‘power, wealth and opportunity into the hands of the many not the few.’ So that’s all right then. I think my new creed may be ‘communitarianism’. I’ve just emerged from a session with Amitai Etzioni, Harvard lawyer and father of the concept. Given the collapse of the family network, urbanisation and the disappearance of the street as a real community, what do we do? And how do we do it without creating a paternalistic nanny state? Amitai is experimenting with practical ways of reinventing communities, doing it locally, from the bottom up. Alan Howarth is organising a small group to have dinner with him tomorrow night.

  As if he didn’t have enough to do, the Prime Minister obliges colleagues by generously autographing bottles that can then be auctioned off at party functions. I am about to take two bottles of House of Commons Wickham Fumé to his room in the hope that they can be signed after PMQs tomorrow. On a bad day there are dozens of bottles clanking on John Ward’s468 desk awaiting prime ministerial attention. Colleagues of the old school (and a more generous disposition) get brandy or malt whisky for the great man to sign. I’m opting for the Wickham Fumé at a fiver a bottle, despite the lordly reprimand I received from Sir Peter Tapsell: ‘You cannot ask the British Prime Minister to autograph a bottle of table wine. You really cannot.’

  ‘It is English,’ I bleated.

  ‘Non-vintage?’

  ‘Er … yes.’

  ‘Good God, what is the party coming to?’

  THURSDAY 16 MARCH 1995

  Inadvertently I appear to have landed poor Fergie in the soup. She called. ‘Children in Crisis’ was in a crisis. They had a fund-raising dinner in the City and needed a speaker. Could I? Would I? Please. Yes, of course, but I have to be back at the Commons to vote at ten. Fine. So along I go last night and all is hunky-dory. Sarah is in very jolly form, I sit on her right, we are cosy, gossipy, giggly (slightly excessively so: I imagine we rather irritate the rest of the table whom we appear to ignore). Sarah tells me how she’s made nothing out of Budgie the Helicopter, but she’s got a new idea for a children’s story that turns out to be just like my new idea, so why don’t we do it together? Nine-thirty comes and I say I’ve got to speak now because I’ve got to go and vote at ten. ‘No, no, no!’ ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ I get up and do my speech, going right over the top about the Mountain Haven Centre and Sarah’s commitment, achievement, beauty, brilliance, pizzazz. I’ve got tears in my eyes. She’s got tears in hers. I say I’ve got to go now. ‘No, no, no!’ ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ Lots of huggy-kissy goodbyes and then, just as I’m slipping out, I have a bright idea.

  ‘Look, why don’t we find the richest man in the room and get him to take my place?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He can sit next to you for coffee and you can seduce him. Before the brandy’s arrived he’ll have promised a nice fat donation for the cause.’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Go on, go for it.’

  And poor girl, she did. I’ve just had a call from the Daily Mail and, after I’d departed what happened, it seems, was this: the rich stranger was found and placed next to Fergie; to everyone’s surprise a Beadle-style prankster’s auction then ensued, in which people were somehow persuaded to raise money by removing their clothing. The long and the short of it is that the man who filled my seat was encouraged to drop his trousers in aid of the cause – and just as he did so photographers appeared from the shadows and flash, bang, wallop caught candid snaps of dear old Fergie with a fellow she’s never met before with his trousers round his ankles.

  LATER

  I was going to say none of us can choose how we are going to be remembered, but I’ve just come from sharing a cup of tea with the Prime Minister and I think he is actively engaged in securing his future reputation. He was talking about his trip to Israel, Jordan, Arafat etc. and let slip that Martin Gilbert469 had come along. I said, ‘The historian?’ ‘Yes, he’s an authority on the Holocaust.’ ‘Of course, but did you get him to keep a record of your meetings?’

  The PM quickly changed the subject.

  Very evidently he wasn’t going to let himself be drawn. But it’s clear: he�
�s got Gilbert on board as his personal chronicler.

  Five years down the line, we’ll have Churchill’s authorised biographer producing the definitive insider’s take on ‘the Major years’.

  WEDNESDAY 22 MARCH 1995

  A funny letter from Fergie – ‘Life might have been easier if I had had to leave for a vote at 10.00 – alternatively had you remained at my right hand I would not have been on the front page of The Sun this morning!’ – but I’m afraid the notepaper confirms Lord Charteris’s worst fears: a huge swan-like S (at least 50 point font) surmounted by a coronet. ‘Where are your children’s books? I would love to hear more about your writing…’ Michèle says: steer clear – ‘the woman’s a disaster waiting to happen’.

  I have just returned from taking a delegation to the Department of Employment to see a woman who can only be described as a triumph. She may look like a death-watch beetle, but Ann Widdecombe is quite simply the best woman we’ve got. She had my Chester people eating out of her hand. She understood exactly what they were after, told them precisely what she could and couldn’t do, and when she makes a commitment you know she’ll deliver.

  I gave the city council people a copy of yesterday’s Hansard. I wanted them to see that I had been badgering Gummer on the local government review. I should be ashamed of my own hypocrisy (because Gummer has done exactly what I wanted and the badgering was merely for show), but I don’t quite see how else I could have played it. Our people on the city council wanted unitary status, wanted it passionately, but our people on the county council naturally wanted the status quo. I don’t think the man in the street really gives a toss. If we’d gone for unitary status, my city people would have been overjoyed, but the county would have been dismayed, the county headquarters might have moved out of Chester, we’d have had disruption, additional unemployment and no guarantee of improved services. Despite being harangued by the city councillors (it was a horrible scene – they were spitting blood), privately I opted for the status quo. I think I was swayed by the fact that I find the officers on the county council more impressive than those on the city council. Irritated at being shouted at by Paul Durham over the millions we coughed up for MBNA, I fear there may even have been a smidgeon of vengefulness in the way I decided to go. Formally, I did everything as I should: I conveyed all the views I had received to the Department of the Environment. Informally, in the lobby, I tipped J. Gummer the wink that I felt the status quo would ‘probably be best’. Now every other historic city, every vaguely comparable city in fact, is going to get unitary status. Chester is the lone exception. Was I right? It’s a close call.