Breaking the Code

by Gyles Brandreth

  In the corner of the room rather pathetically I mouthed, ‘What about Gyles?’

  ‘If you can manage it then, I’d like to keep Julia … She knows the midwives … Thanks.’

  Crossing Members’ Lobby just now I was stopped by a scurrying, breathless Greg Knight [Deputy Chief Whip],513 busy, busy, it’s all happening. ‘Could we have a word – tomorrow?’ he said. ‘Come and find me around 2.15 p.m.’

  This means I’m not getting anything, but I’m going to be let down lightly with a kindly word. I imagine it’s part of a concerted exercise to keep the disappointed ‘on side’.

  Bah.

  THURSDAY 6 JULY 1995

  The dust has settled. Rifkind, Foreign Office. Lang, Board of Trade (in ‘an expanded role’ – the bollocks they do talk.) Portillo, Defence (that’s clever). And the surprises: Waldegrave as Chief Secretary, Gillian Shephard combines Education with Employment, and Virginia gets Heritage. She went in and was offered Transport, but she said ‘No, thank you Prime Minister. There’s only one job I want, National Heritage. Please.’ And she got it – instead of Jeremy for whom it had been destined. Reshuffles are in large part made up as they go along. It’s extraordinary. She does feel a twinge of conscience, just a pang. But Jeremy, wisely (and because he is a good man) has accepted Minister of State rank at the Foreign Office – demotion but a real job. Other than Jeremy the one involuntary departure is poor, dear David Hunt – his moment passed (it does), as the year went by somehow he faded. So the great Hanley-Hunt double act, that for which I led the cheering just a year ago bites the dust … (Michèle said to me this morning, ‘Let’s face it, you’ve got absolutely no judgement – and no sense of timing. To be endorsed by you is the kiss of death.’ A loyal wife speaks!)

  Newcomers: George Young514 at Transport (‘Virginia won’t do it – bring on the bicycling baronet!’), Douglas Hogg at Agriculture, Forsyth to Scotland (which is amazing – when I was there for the Fairbairn by-election I was told time and again ‘the party in Scotland hates Forsyth – he can never be Secretary of State’ – but actually he’s a tough cookie, a sharp operator and who else was there?), Roger Freeman replacing Hunt (Roger will be superb), and for Wales, the baby of the party, young Master Hague, age thirty-four, the youngest Cabinet minister this century. The boy done well. And he’s decent, and nice.

  All in all, it’s not a bad line-up and the rest of the shuffle looks okay – except for one thing: it doesn’t include me! I went to see Greg as instructed. He came out of the Upper Whips’ Office and we huddled in a corner. ‘I’m afraid it didn’t work out for you this time. The PM had to look after the Cowley Street lot – and you’ve got testicles which is a big disadvantage. He wants to reward his team and promote the women.’ So Oliver Heald goes to Social Security and Cheryl Gillan (!!!!!) to Education.515 And naturally Ken Clarke’s PPS gets something nice: Angela Knight is Economic Secretary. It beggars belief. I should have ditched Stephen last year and gone with Ken when I had the chance.

  At lunchtime, I said to Stephen that I thought he should get a new PPS, that I’d done enough. He was very sweet (he is very sweet) and said ‘No, no, no. I need you. I’d be heartbroken.’ But the truth is Health is of no interest to me – at Heritage he did need me and I could actually make a modest impact on this and that. I know it’s only a game, a stupid merry-go-round, nothing matters very much etc., and this time next week I’ll be as happy as Larry – but here and now, this minute, I do find it very galling.

  WEDNESDAY 12 JULY 1995

  The Chancellor is magnificent. We’re halfway through the debate on the economy, I’m sitting just behind him, ‘helping out on the bench’, and he’s at his chuckling, combative, blokeish best. He’s been knocking Gordon Brown all over the shop. Gordon’s a good guy, always friendly in the Tea Room, infinitely more real than Blair, but what a windbag! The waffle and the gobbledygook, they just come tumbling out. He’s been at it twenty minutes and there are clearly masses more to come – he’s got reams of handwritten notes perched on top of a foot-high stack of bound copies of Hansard balanced on top of the despatch box – presumably so he can read his never-ending speech without resorting to the indignity of spectacles. Inflation target, borrowing limit, base rate – he daren’t commit himself to anything, so all he can offer is rant and wind.

  Ken has just leant back and ‘wondered’ whether I’d be interested in being his PPS. He’s a good, kind fellow, and the surest-footed political animal we’ve got, but somehow I think I’ve done my eager-beaver PPS-ing, the moment has passed.

  William [Waldegrave] is looking very chirrupy. It’s a strange business this: a week ago he was our expert on agriculture, tonight he makes his debut as Chief Secretary with all the Treasury answers at his fingertips. As it turns out, Jonathan’s departure may have been timely. The poor man is now contending with a prostitute who knew him fifteen years ago and has suddenly surfaced with the promise of a book of torrid revelations. Sadomasochism is her bag, Jonathan was her lover.

  In the Tea Room they’re saying there’s more to come. ‘Some aspects of Jonathan’s lovelife are very dark indeed.’

  SATURDAY 15 JULY 1995

  I’m in bed. Tea and Marmite toast, and I don’t have to get up for an hour. If living in the moment is what we should be doing this is a good moment in which to live. M is looking very beautiful and last night, at the Chester French Circle fifteenth anniversary dinner (!), she was quite wonderful. She plays the constituency wife to perfection. I am very lucky and I know it.

  Poor Peter Morrison has died and the obituaries (Times, Telegraph anyway) are pretty uncharitable, concentrating on his time as Mrs T.’s PPS (‘His part in her downfall’) with a definite unpleasant nudge and wink in the direction of his ‘bachelor’ status and interest in ‘young people’. Rumours abound, but I don’t think anyone knows the truth of the matter. What we do know is that he smoked and drank himself to death. He was found dead at the foot of the stairs. He was only fifty-one. He looked seventy.

  LATER

  The ‘Chester Jobs Summit’ went well – good press turnout and some useful contributions. Yes, it was my initiative, inspired by Stuart’s516 anxiety that my local profile wasn’t high enough, and designed to outflank the Labour group on the council, but it isn’t quite as cynical as it sounds. We can do more to attract investment and I believe I can help.

  This afternoon’s surgery was alarming. A fellow was booked in for 4.00 p.m. Yesterday his ‘care worker’ called to say he was dangerous and on no account should I see him. Unfortunately we didn’t have a number for him so we couldn’t cancel. I suggested to the care worker that he might like to come along and help hold my hand. He said, ‘Oh no, that’ll only make him worse. He can be very violent.’ On the care worker’s advice, I rearranged the office, so that the man would have to sit right inside the room and I could sit behind my desk right by the door ‘which should remain open at all times.’ The care worker said, ‘Whatever you do, when he’s speaking don’t interrupt him and look straight in his eye. Never look away. And if he makes one false move, get out as fast as you can, lock the door and call the police. I’m deadly serious.’ At four o’clock, when the poor unfortunate arrived, my stomach was churning. I manoeuvred him into the chair in the far corner of the room and hovered nervously by the open door. I gazed steadfastly at him as, very politely, his voice hardly above a whisper, he told me his problem: ‘It’s my care worker. He doesn’t understand me.’

  The Chronicle piece about Peter is fine. They’ve used my tribute and a nice quote from Mrs T. Given what Peter thought of the Chronicle I think he’d feel they’ve done him proud.

  TUESDAY 18 JULY 1995

  I have mastered the art of arriving at a Buckingham Palace garden party. The hordes turn up between three and half-past. The real time to reach the main gates is exactly 3.53 p.m. The riff-raff are already inside, so all alone you have the pleasure of scrunching your way across the gravel, past the guardsmen, under the arch, across the deserted s
quare, up the red-carpeted stairs and through. Proceeding at a leisurely pace, taking in the pictures, pausing to admire the porcelain, you will arrive at the bay windows leading out onto the garden at 3.59 on the dot. It’s too late for the flunkies to push you out onto the lawn to join the crowds. You’ve got to stay where you are, in pole position, for Her Majesty’s arrival under your very nose as the clock strikes four.

  We took Aphra and Saethryd, it’s Aphra’s seventeenth birthday, and then we went on to the end-of-term drinks at No. 10 and the PM was mellow, relaxed, almost playful. I talked publishers with Norma517 and the PM (good man) took the girls off to see the Cabinet room. I said to Aphra, ‘The Prime Minister has wished you a happy birthday – that’s one for the diary.’ She gave me one of her ‘Oh-dad-how-can-you-be-so-embarrassing’ looks. They take it all for granted. And why not? So long as they’re happy…

  WEDNESDAY 26 JULY 1995

  Lunch with Richard Ottaway. This was the united-in-sorrow lunch we fixed in the immediate aftermath of the reshuffle when RO was feeling even sorer than I was – and with greater cause. He first arrived in ‘83 and he’s Heseltine’s PPS. Apparently, the DPM lobbied on his behalf, but couldn’t pull it off … Sounds a bit unlikely. If the Deputy Prime Minister can’t get his man preferment … Never mind. RO is bullish once more – and his loyalty to Hezza is absolute. He says that Major and Heseltine are going to be ‘as one’ between now and the election: ‘you won’t be able to put a cigarette paper between them’. The real joy from the PM’s point of view is that Hezza is going to take on chairing most of the Cabinet committees which will free hours of the PM’s time, release him from mountains of paperwork, enable him to concentrate on the key objectives. It could work. Longer term, bien sûr, the Heseltine ambition remains undiminished. Says RO: ‘Michael will never give up.’

  And speaking of those who never give up, we had dinner with the Portillos chez Hamilton. Neil was quite quickly in his cups, Michael was abstemious. He is chuffed with the new job and taking it very seriously. He won’t be wearing Hezzalike flap-jackets, but we all agreed he’d look so dashing in full-dress mess-kit. He’s a happy bunny. Carolyn [Portillo] seemed fairly remote from it all. Christine [Hamilton], a touch more manic.

  I’ve just come from a long session with Stephen at the DoH [Department of Health]. I advised him that he could probably get away with having Oliver Cromwell on the wall, but it would be a mistake to get rid of the drawing of Florence Nightingale. He is so glad to be where he is doing what he’s doing. And, of course, he’s another one with the ‘longer-term ambition’. And I’m backing him. (Michèle: ‘God, poor man, he’s doomed. You’re the kiss of death. You know it.’)

  Stephen asked, ‘What are you going to do in the summer?’

  I said, ‘Write a novel.’

  He looked alarmed, ‘What – like Edwina?’

  I said, ‘No – why write about your own life with added sex? My novel is going to be a romantic mystery set in America, nothing to do with politics.’518

  And that’s what I’m going to do, starting tomorrow. ‘Beginning. You’re never finished if you forever keep beginning.’519

  MONDAY 25 SEPTEMBER 1995

  Chapter Five completed – despite interruptions. At 9.15 a.m. Gillian Shephard telephoned. Would I call Trevor McDonald, reassure him that the Better English Campaign is above party politics, keep him happy? I said ‘Yes, of course’. But who are we kidding? Yes, the campaign is in the national interest, but it’s a political exercise as well. Gillian wants to announce it in her speech at the party conference! Trevor is very good to come on board. I hope he gets a K. He deserves it.

  We’re just in from seeing Joanna [Lumley] and Tim Pigott-Smith in The Letter. The piece is dated, but Jo and Tim are good and the house was full. Simon [Cadell] came. He’s so gaunt and frail and brave – but he loved seeing Jo and Tim. We managed lots of laughs – that’s all we want.

  SUNDAY 8 OCTOBER 1995

  Alan Howarth has defected to Labour. On the eve of our conference. The man is a traitor and a shit. Yes, I liked him, he was a sort of friend I suppose, but changing your views is one thing, timing your betrayal to maximise the damage to your erstwhile friends quite another. When Stephen and I had supper with him in the summer we knew he was unhappy, but he gave no hint of this. I’m not wholly unsympathetic to some of his gripes, but he’s so bloody prissy and precious and high-minded. Derek Conway520 called. I said I thought we should take the line that Alan’s an eccentric loner, a disappointed man with bees in his bonnet and a mid-life crisis (how’s his marriage, eh?). Derek wanted to know if I felt there might be others similarly inclined. Peter Temple-Morris?521 Ray Whitney?522 Andrew Rowe? They may not be happy with the rightward lurch, but I can’t see them kicking the colleagues of a lifetime in the teeth.

  This means our majority is down to seven – five if you count another of the oddballs, the pointy-headed Sir Richard Body who has ‘freed’ himself from the Conservative whip but still seems to vote with us … except, of course, when there’s a full moon.

  WEDNESDAY 11 OCTOBER 1995

  I’m sitting in bed, a rather comfy fold-me-down, in Nick Hawkins’ front room. It’s gone midnight. It has been a long day. I reached Blackpool in time to hear Hezza’s end-of-the-pier knockabout (all the old tricks, it creaks but it works) and sat on the platform for Stephen’s speech. Stephen did well, but he probably lacks the vulgarity required to make a truly acclaimed conference speech. The talk of the town is Portillo’s effort yesterday. It was clearly as crude as they come – awful mock heroics, cheap Brussels-bashing, wrapping himself in the Union Jack – but the activists stood and cheered and roared for more. He was shameless. Dishonest really. He conjured up the spectre of a European army only so he could say it would only happen over his dead body. He made us believe Brussels are about to launch a EU foreign and defence policy simply so he could reassure us that he’d have none of it. Don’t mess with Britain – don’t mess with Portillo. Having paraded Nelson, Wellington and Churchill as his heroes/role models, he coasted to his climax on the coat-tails of the SAS. ‘Who dares wins!’ The PM was on the platform so had no alternative but to lead the ovation – and I presume No. 10 cleared the speech in advance. Rifkind was not impressed. I think Hurd wouldn’t have let it happen. I saw Michael at the Imperial. I said, ‘How about you then!’ He gave a wan smile. He knows he went too far. He’s had a good summer, been taken seriously, impressed and surprised the brass hats. This devalues the currency.

  THURSDAY 12 OCTOBER 1995

  Highlight of the conference to date: lunchtime with the ladies of Blackpool South. In return for my room for the night I went along to speak to Nick Hawkins’ Association Ladies. As Nick’s car swept us into the car park, we were suddenly confronted by a little demonstration, a couple of ugly women holding placards and a seven-foot tall chicken.

  ‘What’s that?’ I squeaked.

  ‘It’s the chicken,’ said Nick as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. ‘Ignore it.’

  ‘The chicken?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, without a flicker, ‘It follows me everywhere. Ignore it.’

  He jumped out of the car and, together, Nick and I, dutiful wives in tow, marched briskly into the Conservative Club pursued to the door by the giant chicken squawking and flapping its wings. As we went in, Nick waved a dismissive and rather lordly hand towards the local hack who was covering the visit, ‘No comment, no comment, it’s just the chicken.’

  Inside the club, Nick made no reference to the man-sized fowl, and, sensing it was a sensitive topic, I made no further enquiries. But when I came to make my speech it was agony. Michèle was biting her fist to suppress the giggles. As I stood there singing the Prime Minister’s and the local member’s praises, Nick standing po-faced and statesmanlike at my side, I kept catching sight of the wretched chicken, bobbing up and down outside.

  The explanation? Nick has told Blackpool South, where he has a majority of 1,600 and boundary changes that
will make him even more vulnerable, that he is looking for a safer seat.523 The Labour party are accusing him of being on the ‘chicken run’ and they’ve hired this costume to provide him with regular, and seemingly effective, embarrassment.

  TUESDAY 17 OCTOBER 1995

  We’ve only been back twenty-four hours and it’s all going wrong again. Michael Howard is in real trouble over his sacking of Derek Lewis.524 The PM put up a so-so defence at PMQs, but Lewis is very plausible and there’s the scent of blood in the air. David Lidington (who is devoted to his man) says MH considered resignation, but ‘was persuaded it would be the wrong course to take’. The way it feels tonight he may find he has no choice in the matter … I don’t sense that his junior ministers are as supportive as they might be.

  So, Howard’s on the ropes and Portillo’s digging in. Michael P is standing by his conference speech – ‘Je ne regrette rien’ – saying that he and the PM are singing from the same sheet while conceding he’s singing fortissimo. Meanwhile the PM, poor bugger, has to backtrack: he knew the general line the speech would take, he hadn’t seen the wording. With noises off from Geoffrey Howe and Jacques Santer [President of the European Commission], with Hugh Dykes hopping up and down in the Tea Room and on Palace Green denouncing the defence secretary’s ‘grotesque and foolish antics’, we’re back to the same old story. O-bli-vion here we come!

  But there’s good news for someone: Douglas Hurd is to get £250,000 a year working a two-day week as deputy chairman of NatWest Markets.