Breaking the Code

by Gyles Brandreth

  The bigger picture is less rosy: beef, Europe, the leadership – it’s all as bad as ever. Chancellor Kohl lunched at No. 10 and was served Aberdeen Angus. I said to the PM, ‘Did he eat it?’ The PM looked at me and half raised an eyebrow – which makes me think he didn’t! The prospects for Thursday [the local government elections] are dire and there’s a rumour swirling round the lobby that Hezza and the PM have done a deal that if we see meltdown on Thursday Major will step aside and Heseltine will take the helm. It’s cobblers. It makes no sense, it isn’t true, but the leadership is a sore that won’t heal because we just keep picking at it.

  THURSDAY 2 MAY 1996

  A bad night. Richard Short, Neil Fitton, Joan Price, Sue Rowlandson, John Ebo,567 all lost their seats. These are five of our best people. Richard is the Lord Mayor. He is devastated, poor man. I went to the count and told them this was an opinion poll on the government not a reflection on them. They know it’s true, but it doesn’t make it any better. All afternoon with Stuart I toured the committee rooms. Our activists are getting ever older, thinner on the ground and more demoralised.

  Tomorrow the PM will issue his rallying cry – ‘We fight on, we fight to win. The election’s a year away. The economy will turn it round for us, just you wait and see’ – and we are charged with ringing round our cards, ‘steadying the nerves, taking the temperature’.

  I talked to Neil [Hamilton] who was in excellent spirits. He didn’t appear to have registered that there were local elections going on. He is obsessed with his case to the exclusion of all else. He is hopeful that a Lords amendment to the Defamation Bill is going to enable him to pursue his case against The Guardian after all. Essentially we are having to revise the 300-year-old Bill of Rights to accommodate Mr Hamilton – and we’re doing so a) because it’s probably right (i.e. the original Act was created to protect parliamentary privilege and The Guardian is now using it to deny Neil access to justice) and b) because if we’re to survive for another twelve months we can’t afford to have a single colleague going wobbly. We need them all – the good, the bad, and the ugly. (Speaking of which, Sir George is still with us – just.)

  THURSDAY 9 MAY 1996

  In the division lobby last night, during the ten o’clock vote, the Chief padded over to me.

  ‘Play Bridge?’ He didn’t wait for a reply. It was a question expecting the answer yes. A government whip plays Bridge – by definition. ‘The Prime Minister needs us.’

  ‘What?’ I suddenly had an awful vision of having to sit down to play cards with the PM. ‘I er—’

  ‘I don’t know how long I’ll be. I’ve left you a good hand. See you there.’ And that was that.

  I ankled it back to the Pugin Room where I’d left Michèle and her brother and sister-in-law.

  ‘I’m awfully sorry, but I’ve got to go and play a hand of Bridge on behalf of the Chief Whip who has been called in to see the Prime Minister.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mike, ‘so that’s how the country’s run.’

  I left them to finish their coffee and scuttled over to Lord North Street. It must be twenty years since I played Bridge, but last night, though I didn’t have the first idea what I was doing, the cards were kind and my partner turned out to be Tim Sainsbury (I imagine a veteran of the green baize table) and it was really rather fun.

  The District Auditor (a po-faced Mr Magill who comes across as self-regarding and peculiarly unpleasant) has produced his report on the Westminster City Council so-called homes-for-votes scandal. The bad news is that he finds Shirley Porter and five of her colleagues guilty of ‘wilful misconduct’ and is demanding they repay £31.6 million. The good news is that Barry Legg568 is off the hook and Shirley is going to go for a judicial review which won’t be heard until next year – almost certainly after the election. Our strategy is to adopt a high moral tone (step forward J. Gummer) and refuse point blank to condemn or condone until all the judicial processes have been exhausted while throwing as much mud at the opposition as we can muster.

  Shirley no longer seems to have many friends here. Perhaps she never did. This is still very much a gentleman’s club. We tolerate these loud, brash, ambitious women when they’re riding high, but once they take a fall … I feel sorry for her. Sorrier still for Leslie [Porter], who is a decent man and has been a good friend.

  MONDAY 20 MAY 1996

  I am sitting on the front bench apparently listening to and noting the progress of the Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill. The fact that I’m writing the diary instead is not because I am negligent in my duties, it’s because there is nothing for me to do. All the speakers lined up for the next hour are from the opposition benches – the cow Nicholson, Diane Abbott,569 George Foulkes,570 Ted Rowlands.571 Unless they come up with something unexpected (and these four will be painfully predictable) we don’t make a detailed note of opposition speeches in the whips’ book. It’s our side’s performance we’re monitoring – but, other than the minister (J. Hanley), there’s no one from our side here. This is because dear Bowen [Wells, the Foreign Office whip] has cocked up and failed to press-gang any speakers on our side. One of our responsibilities is to ensure that we always have sufficient speakers a) to sustain the debate, and b) to match the other side. The reasons: a) to prevent the opposition from getting extra airtime, b) to send out a positive signal to any outside observers, c) to ensure that we get a fair share of the coverage in the unlikely event of the debate featuring on Yesterday in Parliament.

  Finding colleagues to press into service is becoming increasingly difficult – for several reasons: a) nobody’s listening, so what’s the point? b) the Speaker’s office keeps a note of how many times you speak in a year, so if you speak in an unpopular debate in which you have no interest just to do the whips a favour you may be reducing your chances of speaking in a sought-after debate in which you actually have something you want to say; c) as the parliament progresses we have an ever-weaker hold on colleagues: between now and the election the possibilities for advancement are virtually nil, so what’s to be gained by earning brownie points from the whips?

  As a rule, Lady Olga [Maitland] can be pressed into service for a debate like this, but maybe even she’s had enough. We have exploited her mercilessly. When the air needs to be filled with empty sound, the cry goes up, ‘Send for Olga!’ We sent her over the top on the Disability Bill, promising we’d look after her, knowing we wouldn’t. She’s a PPS and that’s as far as she’s going. And where is Nirj?572 He’s from Sri Lanka, he’s eager to please, why isn’t he on parade?

  Of course, I may be doing Bowen an injustice. I wasn’t at the 2.30 p.m. meeting. It could be that the Deputy took the view that nobody (other than Her Majesty) gives a toss about the Commonwealth, so we’re ‘letting the debate find its own level’ (Whips’ Office euphemism for ‘nobody gives a monkey’s, chaps, so you can all bugger off home’).

  The reason I wasn’t on parade at 2.30 p.m. is that I was at Chequers for the junior ministers’ brainstorming session with the PM. The setting is wonderful, the house is a joy (exactly my idea of a weekend hideaway – a Tudor mansion in the Chilterns, not too large, not too far out of town, civilised, civilising), but the occasion was dispiriting. This wasn’t the PM’s fault. We arrived at ten and there he was, in his jumper, all easy smiles, ready to greet us, hoping he’d found us ‘fizzing with ideas’. We had coffee in the hall (Tom Sackville took to the grand piano, uninvited – a mistake) and then the PM led us upstairs ‘to get down to work’. A two-/three-hour discussion followed – education, law and order, rethinking the social security system, reinventing local government – all valid themes, but we got nowhere because the PM was inviting a ‘blue skies’ approach (‘think the unthinkable’) but there were thirty of us each desperate to get his two minutes in the spotlight. There was no scope for developing a line of thought or argument – it was just a motley collection of variously ambitious people throwing their assorted two cents’ worth into the ring. There wasn’t an original idea (n
ot one) and it was clear that the only way to stand out from the crowd would be either to make a sparklingly original contribution or say nothing. Because I knew I didn’t have the former at my disposal, I opted for the latter. I was the only one not to say a word.

  It was a buffet lunch and my heart sank when the PM ushered me to his table – not because he isn’t a nice guy (he is), but because nobody behaves naturally with him, silences always fall and then I feel compelled to fill the air with noise. In the event, it was fine. I got him to talk about the house and its treasures, and, over coffee, upstairs, I persuaded him to unlock the drawer of Chequers treasures and show me Oliver Cromwell’s death mask.

  TUESDAY 21 MAY 1996

  The PM has had a triumphant afternoon. Learning last night that the EU veterinary experts had declined to sanction any easing of the beef ban, he decided this morning, as a matter of policy, to go berserk. ‘I’ve gone through merry hell to keep this show on the road, but enough’s enough. We’ve been let down by our partners once too often.’ He has just made a statement to the House saying that until the ban on beef by-products is lifted and there’s a framework in place for lifting the rest of the embargo, we are going paralyse the Union – vetoing EU decisions, disrupting the Florence summit, halting progress on preparations for the IGC.573 We roared, we cheered, we rocked in our seats with delight. Cash, Tapsell, Jenkin (the usual suspects) got to their feet to salute our leader for taking this ‘bold and necessary stand’. The PM is the hero of the hour.

  But, but … over at the Department of the Environment (Gummer, Curry, yours truly) we have our doubts. It’s not just that our instincts are more Euro-friendly (which they are), it’s that this is one of those moves that provides forty-eight hours of gung-ho glory to be followed by eventual disappointment leading to resentment and anger when the policy fails to deliver. The PM is marching us up the hill again – ‘we’re taking on Brussels, boys’ – but what happens when he has to march us down again?

  The plan has been on the table for a couple of weeks. The Chancellor and the Foreign Secretary gave it their blessing this morning. Ken went along with it because he’s read the small-print. (Well, he hasn’t read it, but he’s got the gist of it.) We’re frustrating the EU until we’ve got the ban on by-products lifted and a ‘framework’ for the lifting of the wider ban. The ‘by-products’ are tallow, gelatin and bull semen – we’re pretty sure that getting the ban on them lifted is achievable – but their contribution to the economy of the industry is minimal so the ‘victory’ when it comes won’t amount to much. It’s the ban on beef that counts and all we’re asking for here is a ‘framework’ for lifting it – a ‘framework’ can be anything: what it isn’t is a timetable.

  Anyway, however the new policy pans out, there is good news not yet in the public domain. Roger Freeman is being brought in as ‘beef war supremo’. Hogg is being side-lined and Roger will oversee the implementation of the slaughtering policy. He’s a ‘grown-up’ (as we like to say), he’ll ‘get a grip’ (ditto), it has to be an improvement. Hogg wanders into the office quite regularly (former members of the office tend to), lisping, ‘I’m quite content to be culled myself. I could be earning a great deal more at the Bar.’ He may be highly gifted, and he’s certainly quite congenial, but as a political animal he’s more flawed than most – and he’s still wearing that hat!

  SUNDAY 26 MAY 1996

  A few nights ago Brian Mawhinney sought me out in the lobby during the ten o’clock vote. He was quite abrupt: ‘Need to have a word. Met your chairman the other day. Says you’re never in the constituency.’

  ‘But I protest –’

  ‘I don’t mind what you do with your time, I’m just telling you.’

  Brian did not linger to hear my protestations, but I was so bloody angry. I wanted to go and ring Stuart [Begbie] up that minute, I wanted to ram my wretched constituency diary down his throat, but I didn’t – of course I didn’t. I simply simmered, bubbled, internalised my anger as (on the whole) I do. And now I’m glad. Last night Stuart and David Pickering574 gave me dinner at the Arkle, the formal, pretentious, overpriced restaurant at the Grosvenor – chilling atmosphere, silver tureens lifted from nouvelle cuisine in unison, the sort of thing Michèle absolutely hates but now and again I quite like. Anyway, Stuart could not have been more mellow and positive and generous. He ordered a wine, a Margaux – at, I think, £300 the bottle. We glugged it down. He ordered another! I did not mention my conversation with Mawhinney, but over the course of the dinner I ran through my programme for the weekend in harrowing detail: the architects’ conference at the Town Hall, the Training Into Jobs launch, the visit to the Regimental Museum, the Samaritans charity walk, my official opening of the Save the Family offices etc. etc. – and what I realised, of course, as I described these activities, is that there wasn’t a known Conservative at any of them and if the activists don’t see what you’re doing they don’t know what you’re doing … So, from now on in I’m going to do a monthly newsletter listing everywhere I’ve been, everyone I’ve seen, everything I’ve done. (It’s pathetic really, since I expect to lose the seat, I’m ready to lose the seat, but I kill myself here every weekend, and I want to be appreciated, I want to be loved.)

  More seriously, I have just been watching the box and George Walden (who is not standing at the election) has been pleased to tell us that he’s ready to resign the whip and wipe out our majority! His line is that he won’t be party to a government of petty-minded Little Englanders. The PM’s beef-war policy is ‘silly and cynical’ and George (from his great height) wants us to know he’ll have none of it. He is so self-righteous. At Westminster no one (no one at all) takes him seriously any longer – he’s a column in the Evening Standard, amusing enough to flick through, that’s all – but (this is the hell of it), rate him or despise him, we need him.

  The papers report that David Hunt is launching a pro-European counter-offensive. As his whip, shouldn’t I know about this? Yes, I should but I don’t. I phone David. He’s alarmed – but only gently. David’s responses are always measured. He has no desire to rock the boat. He only gave the Sunday Times a sentence or two. It’s been misconstrued. His new group, Mainstream, is simply a loose umbrella for One Nation Conservatives. It’s not going to be doing any campaigning, just quietly supporting the PM and reminding the world outside that the majority of the party believe in the centre ground. David is, as ever, l’homme raisonable. But is he right? Like it or not, the sceptics are in the ascendant.

  SUNDAY 2 JUNE 1996

  The good news is that there are five photographs of me in the Chester Standard this week. The bad news is that the national press are proving less helpful. Rod Richards has been fingered by the News of the World. Our swaggering, fiery-tempered junior Welsh Office minister, champion of family values, husband of twenty-one years, father of three, has been caught with his trousers down in the company of a fetching PR lady twenty years his junior. I imagine he’ll have gone by lunchtime.

  I’d say ‘poor bugger’ (and I do say ‘poor bugger’ – I loathe the News of the World) but this one we did see coming – he was warned, he knew what he was doing, he took the risk. What more could we, should we have done? I heard, via a journalist, that one of my charges – Nigel Evans – had been seen more than once in a gay bar in Manchester. I asked the Deputy, ‘What should I do?’

  ‘Tell him.’

  I took Nigel to the Smoking Room, bought him a drink, and told him. He was outraged, angry, indignant. He denied it – furiously. I said, ‘Good God, I believe you – and I don’t care one way or the other. I’m simply telling you…’575

  WEDNESDAY 5 JUNE 1996

  Good news. My friend Sebastian Coe has joined the Whips’ Office. It was to be another of the new intake but as we’d had word that he’s also been engaged in an extra-marital dalliance (strenuously denied by him when I took him to dinner in the Churchill Room to ‘sound him out’) he was passed over ‘this time round’ and the cards fell Seb’s way.
He is delighted and so am I. He is a proper friend. I like almost all my colleagues here, but this is a closed community: we are close when we’re here, but we know that when we leave the place we’ll rarely see one another. There are a handful of exceptions. When I’m no longer here, I know I’ll still see Seb.

  Jonathan Evans has replaced Rod at the Welsh Office. He moved with a bad grace. He was happy where he was, but as he’s now the only credible Welshman we’ve got (other than Sir Wyn who is a darling but 107)576 there wasn’t much choice. He was harrumphing about it last night. I said, ‘Go with a will and you’re doing them a favour. Next time, they’ll be obliged to make you a minister of state.’ He grunted. He is not a happy bunny. Gary Streeter (God-fearing solicitor and general good egg) leaves the office to replace Jonathan [Evans] in the Lord Chancellor’s Department, hence the vacancy for Seb. I am no longer the junior whip. My days of hanging out the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign and circulating the silver goblets are over.

  SUNDAY 9 JUNE 1996

  Yesterday was our 23rd wedding anniversary. The sun shone and we had a happy day. We took Aphra and Julian Slade to The Ivy for lunch and then went to the matinee of Salad Days. It still works. I said to Aphra, ‘Julian is the Andrew Lloyd Webber of his generation.’ She didn’t believe me, but it’s true.