Breaking the Code

by Gyles Brandreth

  TUESDAY 28 NOVEMBER 1995

  The Budget’s been and gone.

  A penny off income tax, steady-as-she-goes, I’m-a-prudent-Chancellor. Two-fifths of the roads programme is to be cut, which will have one or two jumping up and down in certain parts of the constituency, but on the whole it’s all very reasonable (MIRAS untouched), very Ken, easy enough to defend on the doorstep. As the Chancellor sat down, from below the gangway Skinner called out, ‘Is that it?’ I suspect that may be the general verdict.

  Public spending is currently running at 42 per cent of national income. Equally alarming (possibly more so) is the news that I’ve put on a stone since I arrived here. I had my ‘medical’ in the little room off the Cromwell lobby: cholesterol improvement (all those salads, all that grated carrot!) but ‘a little regular exercise wouldn’t come amiss’. Potentially more exciting is news of the virtually unnoticed mini-mini-shuffle. John Taylor is swapping with Jonathan Evans. Because John is frayed at the edges, looks as if he has lived a little and is divorced, the view is that clean-cut Evans is our boyo for the matrimonial legislation. Horam is coming to Health and Willetts replaces him as Roger Freeman’s sidekick. There was confusion for a time when it dawned on somebody that moving Horam to Health made Sackville surplus to requirements. Poor Tom hung in limbo for an hour or two until a berth was found for him at the Home Office. They are going to have five ministers there, instead of four. It’s only a game. Why not?

  The upshot of the musical chairs is this: there’s a vacancy in the Whips’ Office. Once the panic over Tom had been resolved, I said to Stephen, ‘This means there’ll be a new whip.’

  He looked at me blankly, ‘Yes.’

  I said, ‘Well?’

  The penny dropped. ‘I’ll speak to Alastair,’ he said.

  We’ll see.

  WEDNESDAY 29 NOVEMBER 1995

  Memorable day. President Clinton came to address both Houses of Parliament. At 12 noon we trooped into the royal gallery and took our places. We had the usual flummery: Black Rod, the Lord Chancellor, Madam Speaker, all in full fig, figures straight out of Gilbert & Sullivan. The fanfare sounded, trumpets from on high. In came the Clintons and the Majors. The PM, Norma and Hillary sat in the front row; only the President sat on the stage. In the middle of the stalls we’d come because we thought we should. He may be a Democrat, but he’s still President. ‘Be not too proud to be there.’ This is a collector’s item, we said to ourselves. But if we’d come to mock, we stayed to praise. He was sensational.

  He looks good – tall, slim, handsome, his eye meets your eye – but the way he talks … His speech was just perfect. It was measured, easy, elegant; he touched all the right buttons. He saluted the PM’s quest for peace in Northern Ireland, he affirmed the special relationship, he even announced that the US navy’s latest vessel is to be named the Winston Churchill (gasps around me, ‘First he wins the lottery, now this!’). He said all the things you’d expect him to say, but in such a way that they seemed neither predictable nor clichéd. There was a grandeur about it, yet his language was simple and the manner almost conversational. He brought us towards him. It did what oratory should, it stirred and lifted, but he made it personal and intimate. There was none of the phoney theatrics you’d have got from Heseltine or Hague (or even me) – no dated Oxford Union nonsense about this. This was modern oratory, the best speech of its kind I’ve ever heard. If we walked in wondering how he ever got to the White House, by the time we shuffled out we knew.

  Moments before the President made his entry, Greg Knight bustled down the central aisle. He saw me, stopped, pointed at me – I was halfway down the row – and said in an alarmingly loud stage whisper, ‘The minute this is over the Chief needs to see you in his room.’ ‘Who’s been a naughty boy then?’ said my neighbour. I said nothing. Once we’d cheered the President on his way, I ankled round to the Chief’s office. There are two ways in. One through the Upper Whips’ Office, the other, a back way, down a corridor through an ante-room. I took the back way.

  ‘Ah,’ said Alastair, getting up from behind his tiny desk, ‘Good, good.’ He perched on one sofa. I perched on the other. He gobbled gently and then, as though suddenly remembering why he’d summoned me, ‘The Prime Minister hopes you will accept your first ministerial appointment by joining the Whips’ Office. Yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s the one job in government that you can only get with the full approval of your peers – so you’re here because we wanted you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Lunch?’

  He got up and rolled through the Upper Whips’ Office, me in tow. We went down to his car and drove to Downing Street. ‘You’ll have to give up your outside interests. That’s the way it goes. The Deputy will explain the form. And you’ll get a security briefing. We’re lunching their lordships by the way.’

  Their lordships turned out to be Tom Strathclyde and the other whips from the Lords, only about two of whom I recognised. This lunch is an annual event, ‘a tradition’. ‘There are lots of traditions here,’ giggled Liam Fox. ‘It’s very old-fashioned. And hierarchical. As you’ll discover. For the time being, if I were you, I’d keep my mouth shut.’

  And, so far, I have. As I write, it’s gone midnight and I’m just in from my first whips’ dinner – an Italian meal in an upstairs room in a little restaurant off Victoria. Copious drinking, banter, and schoolboy games. When it came to nominating my ‘shit of the year’ I came up with John Gorst. Other than that I have hardly uttered a word all day. ‘You got it just right,’ said Liam, still giggling, ‘a certain modesty is becoming in a new boy.’

  I am the most junior member of Her Majesty’s government and now I am going to bed, tipsy but content. Goodnight.

  THURSDAY 30 NOVEMBER 1995

  They do take the hierarchy very seriously indeed. The pecking order is as follows:

  Chief Whip (formally Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury): Alastair Goodlad, to be referred to henceforward as ‘Chief’.

  Deputy Chief Whip (formally Treasurer of Her Majesty’s Household): Greg Knight, to be referred to henceforward as ‘Deputy’. (According to Patrick McLoughlin,534 who is offering plenty of avuncular advice for which I am duly grateful: ‘You really must call them Chief and Deputy and if you’ve got a problem you take it to the Deputy. You never go direct to the Chief. Keep in with the Deputy and he’ll protect you.’)

  Comptroller of Her Majesty’s Household: Tim Wood.

  Vice-Chamberlain of Her Majesty’s Household and pairing whip: Andrew Mackay.

  Senior whips (Lord Commissioners): Derek Conway, Bowen Wells (also social and carriage whip), Simon Burns, Michael Bates535 and Liam Fox.

  Junior whips: Patrick McLoughlin (Head of the Lower Office!), Roger Knapman,536 Gary Streeter,537 Richard Ottaway and GB.

  We meet every day at 2.30 p.m. in the Upper Whips’ Office. Crowded, cluttered, untidy, mounds of paperwork piled high on every desk, unwashed wine glasses, yesterday’s newspapers; it has the feeling of the staffroom of a minor public school, circa 1950. For the meeting the senior whips sit at their desks around the walls of the room, the juniors sit in designated places on sofas in the middle. The junior whip (yours truly) sits in a low armchair immediately in front of the Deputy and consequently can’t see him – or be seen by him. If the junior wishes to speak he raises his right hand. The junior’s duties at the meeting seem to be to ensure that the ‘Do Not Disturb’ notice is in position and to hand out any paperwork – distributing it strictly according to hierarchical ranking.

  The Deputy chairs the first half of the meeting, ‘the housekeeping’:

  1. Bench changes. At all times when the House is sitting there has to be a whip on the government front bench. There’s a rota, but you can swap if you need to.

  2. Business of the day. Each whip looks after the business of one or more departments (mine is to be Environment) so if it’s your department’s ‘business’ that day you’re supposed to know all
about it and tell the team what to expect.

  3. Committees. There are a dozen (and more) backbench committees every day. One of us is supposed to be in attendance at each of them. (Most of these committees are a disgrace – attended by the chairman, secretary and a couple of loners with nowhere else to go. A distinguished visitor turns up expecting to address a House of Commons committee and finds himself exchanging pleasantries with half a dozen nonentities. The system is dying on its feet. When I first attended the Backbench Treasury Committee there were twenty or so in regular attendance. I went last week and three turned up. Simon Coombs had some bigwig from British Airways or the BTA on parade at the Tourism Committee and, apart from Simon and the whip, nobody showed.)

  4. Voting lists. The pairing whip tells us who failed to vote in yesterday’s divisions without being slipped or registering a pair and if it’s one of ours we have to seek them out and find out what happened. (Each whip has a card listing his charges. It’s done on a regional basis. I’m looking after the north-west.)

  About twenty minutes into the meeting, the Chief arrives. He clambers over the outstretched legs of the junior whips and makes his way to his ‘chair’, facing the Deputy. In his hand he has the ‘whips’ notes’ which he proceeds to read out loud. This, I understand, is as close as we get to the fabled Black Book. There’s a huge old-fashioned safe in the corner of the office. Inside the safe are a couple of notebooks. Whips are expected to use them to record any ‘intelligence’ that may be of interest as concisely as possible. There’s a top copy which is torn out for the Chief to read out. The carbon remains in the notebook. I get the impression (early days) that the notes are to gauge general mood (tittle-tattle from the Tea Room): any significant information should be taken to the Deputy in the first instance. He will then decide whither it goes…

  SATURDAY 2 DECEMBER 1995

  Clinton has had a remarkable week. The crowds in Ireland, north and south, Protestant and Catholic, they love him. He’s delivered five major speeches in three days, by all accounts each one as powerful as the first. He must have a core of writers – real writers – who don’t simply have a fine way with words but who understand the vocabulary and the rhythm he requires. That’s what Major needs. In this country our senior politicians’ speeches are simply cobbled together, usually at the last minute, invariably by young men in red braces.

  And Brandreth hasn’t had too bad a week either.

  Michèle said to me, ‘I hope you’re happy now?’

  I said, ‘I am.’

  She knows that we’re going to lose the election, that’s why she’s content for me to stand again. She knows we could be out for ten years or more – if PR comes in, who knows, forever? This could be my one and only chance to be in government. If it hadn’t happened I would have been disappointed always. And I’ve a feeling the Whips’ Office is going to suit me – and I may even suit it.

  The upside: I get a salary, a car, a phonecard, a ministerial black box (Shana538 explained, ‘It’ll take a few weeks to arrive – it’s hand-made by prisoners’) and, best of all, no more speeches. Whips mouth various procedural mantras in the Chamber and on committee, but they don’t ask questions, they don’t make speeches, they don’t have views. (Greg Knight: ‘We’re here to support the government in general and the Prime Minister in particular. Our job is to secure the government’s business – not think about it.’)

  The downside: I now have a pager strapped to my waist. I am at someone else’s beck and call. And from Monday to Thursday I will be a prisoner at the Commons – but I’ve been that anyway.

  And, of course, the constituency round continues – remorselessly. Last night we had Norman Lamont to the Friday Supper Club. He’s searching for a seat, so he’s trawling the circuit, and if he’s making speeches as good as last night’s he’ll find one. He was funny (which surprised them) and loyal (which amazed them) – he peddled his Eurosceptic line, but quite gently. There wasn’t a word against Major. He got a standing ovation. He’ll have gone off feeling good. I’m glad.

  I’m now off to the Newtown residents (they want better central heating, more double glazing, more police on the beat), the World Development Group (they want action on aid, debt and East Timor), and the Association of Wrens (who want nothing except a few laughs – bless them. Their modest wants I can supply.)

  MONDAY 4 DECEMBER 1995

  I have just done my first hour of bench duty – not very stimulating. Three worthy contributions to the Budget debate: David Mitchell,539 decent, humane, old-fashioned; Jeremy Bray,540 boring for science; Nigel Forman, wiry and customarily sharp, getting off to an appalling start with a ghastly joke. Prompted, he said, by seeing me on the front bench he wanted to liven things up and asked, ‘What is the difference between O. J. Simpson, Rosemary West and the Leader of the Opposition? The answer is that only Rosemary West has convictions.’ The few who were there groaned and shook their heads. What made him do it?

  The whip on duty sits on the front bench, book on lap, recording not the details of what’s said – that is available in Hansard – but his impression of the tone, content, attitude, thought processes of each of the speakers. The idea is to get a handle on where so-and-so may be coming from, to spot early signs of wobble, disaffection, disloyalty. Marks are not given, there are no hieroglyphics, it’s simply an instant subjective digest of what’s happening in the Chamber. You report on ministers as much as backbenchers – good speech, bad speech, insensitive, well-briefed, all over the shop, drunk again! – and no one outside the Whips’ Office is permitted to look at the book, other than the PM.

  I was also introduced to the emergency button. Secreted in the panelling of the clerks’ desk is a hidden button. Press it and a bell rings in the Upper Whips’ Office. Reinforcements come scurrying into the Chamber at once. At least, that’s the theory.

  When I’d completed my hour I joined Stephen in the Tea Room.

  ‘Are we still going to have our breakfasts?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, I hope so,’ I said.

  ‘Good.’

  How do we square this with our consciences? Fairly easily, I think. We are totally loyal to the present administration. We work for its success. But we know it’s doomed. We are looking over the hill.

  WEDNESDAY 6 DECEMBER 1995

  On a Wednesday, instead of our 2.30 p.m. meeting, we meet at No. 12 for a marathon session from 10.30 a.m. to lunch. We sit around the large table, the Deputy at one end, his back facing the window onto St James’s Park, the Chief at the other end, near the door to his study. The rest of us are arranged in a precise pecking order on either side, the more junior you are the nearer you are to the centre of the table.

  The agenda is as per the 2.30 p.m. meetings, except for ‘extras’ and refreshments. The extras include detailed discussion of the next two weeks’ business – what needs to go where, when and why – and a weekly assessment of the state of our sick and our troubled. The ‘troubled’ feature on a list marked U (for Unstable); the sick merely have their names read out. There is much banter, most of it directed at Liam as our resident doctor.541

  ‘I thought you said George Gardiner was going to be dead by Christmas. He’s never looked fitter.’

  ‘What do you make of Ted’s ankles? They’ve swollen terribly.’

  ‘It’s fluid retention, not a good sign.’

  ‘They look like elephants’ feet.’

  ‘They are elephants’ feet. Ted never forgets.’

  When we arrive there’s coffee and biscuits. During the meeting the coffee is topped up by Doris, who seems to be the No. 12 housekeeper, a jolly lady of riper years, with a heart of gold and an ample bosom. The bosom is quite disconcerting. It’s low slung and pressed very firmly against you as the coffee is served.

  At 12 noon champagne is served – in silver goblets. The goblets are rather fine pieces, all shapes and sizes, donated to the office down the years. Each whip has his own goblet and it is the junior whip’s task to carry the tray of goble
ts round the table, moving from one end to the other, from one side to the other – fourteen separate moves all told – to ensure that the tray is proffered in the correct pecking order. Bowen Wells, as social and carriage whip, opens the champagne (with difficulty – his inability to perform the task without squirting the stuff all over the place is evidently a running joke) and pours it, partly onto the table, with luck into the goblets. The junior whip follows him, altar boy behind the celebrant, offering orange juice to those who like their champagne diluted. (The Chief does not.) To go with the champagne there are rather good, thick, scrunchy cheese straws. (The Chief likes these kept within reach.)

  As far as I can tell the junior whip’s duties are as follows:

  1. At 10.30 a.m. on the dot, to close the double doors.

  2. Before the meeting, to distribute the paperwork. After the meeting, to clear it away and destroy it. We keep no record of our deliberations.

  3. At 11.59 a.m. to catch Bowen’s eye, so that as the clock strikes twelve I can begin my perambulations with the silver goblets and he can begin faffing about with the champagne.