Breaking the Code

by Gyles Brandreth

  For what it’s worth (not much – not anything actually) I’m now head of the Lower Office, and we have three new whips: Peter Ainsworth,591 Anthony Coombs, Jacqui Lait. Jacqui is the first female Conservative whip in the history of the office. This is quite a departure, unthinkable, I imagine, until very recently. The office is run entirely like a gentleman’s club (that’s part of its charm) and, nominally, potential whips come up for election. The Chief certainly goes through the motions of leading a discussion, out of which names emerge, but the names that emerge are the ones that he had in mind and the PM has blessed. He tells us, in terms, we can blackball any candidate, and he says it with conviction, but he slips into the chat that the PM rather feels it’s time for a woman whip – and he rather agrees – and Jacqui seems ‘a decent sort of chap’ (ho ho) – and immediately we all murmur our assent. Thus a little bit of history is made.

  FRIDAY 23 AUGUST 1996

  It is quite funny. We have had to agree: this is our worst holiday ever. I wasn’t going to keep the diary this week, but I want to record the essential horror of it.

  North Wales is death. Beaumaris was bad enough. We arrived on the night the circus left town. Our little attic room at Ye Olde Bull overlooked the main street and into the small hours, as we tossed and turned, the caravans, the lorries, the transporters rumbled, trundled, thundered pass. Michèle said, ‘I can’t stay here another night.’ We did the castle, we did the Museum of Childhood Memories (!!!), we buggered off. Snowdon was invisible. It wasn’t half-hidden in a romantic mist, it was unseeable in a grey-green fog. And last night, as we drove into Abersoch, through the swishing windscreen wipers and wash of hailstones I saw the huge sign by the bridge: WELCOME TO THE WELSH RIVIERA! We put the car in the hotel car park, opened the door and stepped out – the puddle was so deep my feet disappeared. After dinner (which was fine – circa 1956 fine, but fine all the same) we retreated to our garret. The bed is one of those that has given way in the middle: we spent the night rolling into one another and then clambering back towards the sides. At two in the morning I went to the loo and, returning, pulled the bathroom door shut after me. As I pulled it (this is true, I promise) the door came off its hinges and fell onto the bed. We lay there through the night gazing at the lavatory bowl that was intermittently illuminated by the flashing neon side in the street outside.

  We are abandoning ship. No doubt Llandudno is lovely – and we’d get the pick of the shelters – but we’re going home. We are driving to Chester, then to Birmingham (for the pre-Raphaelites – something civilised), then to Barnes. O joy, o rapture! Michèle said at about four in the morning, ‘Perhaps we should have tried Benidorm.’592 Yes, it’s been that bad.

  SATURDAY 7 SEPTEMBER 1996

  I’m on the 8.30 a.m. flight from Manchester. I began the new novel yesterday morning.593 I flew up last night for the Aldford evening. I’m up again on Monday for the Rotary lunch, a surgery and Bingo night at the Deaf Centre. It’s all happening!

  I did a ring round the card594 and the troops are quite mellow. The polls are improving and the general line is what I was getting from my people in Aldford: ‘it doesn’t feel too bad on the patch’. Several who didn’t like Blair’s demon eyes think we’re mad to be using them again.595 Den Dover: ‘Why can’t we be more positive?’ (Answer, according to Finkelstein: Because positive campaigning doesn’t work.)

  Neil [Hamilton] is bubbly. His libel action begins on the eve of the party conference. He knows this has not made him popular with the powers that be, but he had to ‘seize the moment’. The Guardian (crafty buggers) are planning to subpoena the PM, the DPM, the Cabinet secretary and Richard Ryder. Publicly, the PM is treating the possibility of having to appear in court with a light touch. Privately, he is not amused. This is a distraction he could do without.

  THURSDAY 26 SEPTEMBER 1996

  ‘John Major was struggling to prevent open warfare within his government last night after a Foreign Office minister publicly attacked Kenneth Clarke over his stance on a single European currency.’ Bonsor596 has backed down, apologised, eaten humble pie – but on it goes, relentlessly. What hope is there? Some. Today we learn that Gordon Brown may be proposing a 50p top rate tax for high earners – and Blair has to slap down Jeremy Corbyn for inviting Gerry Adams to Westminster. It also seems that Tony Blair has also been asking my old friend Geoff Atkinson597 for some funny one-liners for his conference speeches – quips on the defections, Maurice Saatchi’s peerage, Portillo, fat cats and the beef crisis preferred. Geoff has declined, somewhat indignantly – but while they may have handled it ineptly, the principle is right. If you want jokes in your speech, get in a professional.

  I’m at the Ramada, Manchester. Saeths598 is coming over for supper. I’ve done the Waterstone’s lunch. Also on the bill: Humphrey Carpenter, Peter Stringfellow. Humphrey’s book is becoming a bestseller.599 Of course, Runcie was naive to gabble away to him as he did, and on tape, but I sensed (though he denied it) that Humphrey does feel a bit sheepish – as I would if ever I published my diary. I might do it, but I’d feel those pangs of guilt. What I would not do is emulate the amazing Stringfellow. ‘Hello, ladies. You’ve read about me, haven’t you? It was in the paper. It said I’d slept with 400 women. (Pause) That was last year! (Nervous tittering from audience.) Mind you, I’ve had some good times in Manchester. Have I slept with any of you ladies? (He shades his eyes, scans the room.) Come on, ladies, own up.’ At the back of the room a middle-aged matron raises a tentative arm. Throaty laugh from the platform.

  I kid you not.

  TUESDAY 1 OCTOBER 1996

  Neil’s case has collapsed. I don’t understand the ins and outs of it, but the essence is that last night Neil and Ian Greer decided they had no choice but to abandon their action. They have agreed to pay some of The Guardian’s costs, they’ve their own costs of £300,000 plus, and today’s Guardian headline reads: ‘A liar and a cheat: official’.

  The paper claims that Neil collected tens of thousands of pounds from Fayed, the money in £50 notes stuffed into envelopes. It’s got three of Fayed’s staff ready to swear to it, claiming that Neil turned up at Fayed’s offices demanding his envelopes. Neil continues to deny it all. He now wants it investigated by the Standards and Privileges Committee. He says he and Greer have abandoned the case simply because the costs have proved prohibitive, but reading between the lines it seems he and Greer have fallen out. The Guardian forced the disclosure of a minute taken by Robin Butler600 of Heseltine’s conversation with Neil. Heseltine asked Neil, in terms, if he’d had a financial arrangement with Greer. Neil denied it. Now it turns out he had – and this minute is being described as ‘exposing a conflict of interest’ between Neil and Greer. (Minutes of ministerial telephone calls are not unusual. The outer office can listen in on any call and be taking a note, unbeknownst to the caller.)

  I’ve been ringing Neil’s flat. It’s permanently engaged. I don’t know what to say. I believe him, but millions won’t. Not now. I began the day at the Department of Health.601 Prayers. Not many friends for Neil to be found there. I then went (incredibly) to Harrods because they’d prearranged a signing session in the book department. I didn’t linger. Clearly when Fayed stalks the store the staff are terrified. When Saethryd did a holiday job in the cosmetics department she said the girls used to hide under the counters and round the back to avoid catching the owner’s eye … Michèle, bless her, has cut up her Harrods account card to show solidarity. (It’s the right gesture, but we have to be honest. I don’t think we’ve used the account in years.)

  MONDAY 7 OCTOBER 1996

  I’m on the train to Bournemouth. I’m staying at the Highcliff. Damn the expense, it could be my last conference ever. I’ve just done the John Dunn Show, Radio 2. John is so nice, so good (he is the best interviewer in the business) – but he’s not happy. It’s become a miserable place, the BBC. Perhaps we should have privatised it? At least at the commercial stations they’ve got some bounce.

  The serious
news is ‘the Willetts memorandum’. It’s now in the public domain because it was subpoenaed by The Guardian. It’s just a whip’s note recording a conversation David had with Geoffrey Johnson-Smith when Geoffrey was chairman of the Committee on Members’ Interests and the Committee was investigating Neil’s undeclared sojourn at the Paris Ritz. The memo said Geoffrey ‘wants our advice’ and then explored the possibilities: either encourage the Committee to investigate the matter quickly or, ‘exploiting the good Tory majority’, get them to defer the investigation, citing Neil’s pending libel action, saying it was going to be sub judice. Geoffrey recalls the conversation, but naturally denies that he sought advice or that he could or would for a moment have been influenced by it. (Geoffrey is indeed Mr Probity, loyal and decent. He still looks quite amazing, a handsome fifty. In fact he’s seventy-two, getting deafer, not necessarily the safe pair of hands he once might have been.) Of course, it’s all a lot of nonsense. David was simply doing his job. Part and parcel of a whip’s job is to seek ways of ensuring that the government is seen in the best light. Of course, the Hamilton enquiry was an embarrassment and we wanted it to go away, but there was no sinister or corrupt intent. But never mind the reality: it’s going to be played up as the government in general and David in particular, attempting to subvert the independence and integrity of the Committee.

  TUESDAY 8 OCTOBER 1996

  Every morning at 8.45 a.m. we are to meet in the Poole Room. There really isn’t anything to be done here: the MPs who come to the conference come on flying visits. Caballing in corners is not taking place. Where there is some action, however, is on the box. On Sky they’re running and rerunning an amazing video of Princess Di and James Hewitt. It is extraordinary, a monstrous invasion of their privacy but gripping. She’s in a leotard riding around on his back. I think this must be what Richard Spring’s father would have called ‘a bit of horseplay’. It’s in fuzzy long shot, but it’s certainly them.602

  I went along to Stephen [Dorrell]’s room to collect him to go over to the hall. When I arrived, I thought he had someone with him. I waited outside the door. It turned out he was rehearsing his speech. We do lead funny lives … middle-aged men in solitary rooms in seaside hotels mouthing clichés and platitudes hoping to wow a crowd we need but secretly disparage.

  THURSDAY 10 OCTOBER 1996

  Last night, without seeking clearance (for fear I wouldn’t get it) I snuck up to London by train to speak at the Ernst & Young dinner at 1 Whitehall Place. Inevitably as the train pulled out of Southampton, my pager went. (I hate the pager. I hate the sensation. I’m convinced it’s giving me liver cancer. I wear it on my belt because if I have it in my pocket I can’t feel it when it vibrates.) It was Shana. ‘Call at once.’ I ranged up and down the train looking for a friendly face with a mobile phone. I found one, called, heart thumping, thinking I was about to be summoned back. It turned out to be nothing.

  After the speech, I went home, picked up the car and drove back to Bournemouth. I got in by 2.00 a.m. Not bad. This morning’s meeting was only enlivened by the news that poor Nick Scott was found flat on his face in the street outside the hotel. ‘According to the police,’ said the Chief (chuckling, but not unkindly), ‘Sir Nicholas was found “kissing the pavement”.’

  The PM’s had a good press for his shirtsleeves question-and-answer session. This is what he does so well. And today is ‘unity day’. Portillo has called for ‘unity, unity, unity’. The Chancellor has wooed and won the faithful. And Hezza was at his ridiculous barnstorming best. It all feels quite good again. But it always does by the end of the conference. And then we go back into the real world and discover out there it’s as bleak as ever.

  MONDAY 14 OCTOBER 1996

  Thurnham has gone over to the Liberals. This isn’t a total surprise, but it’s still nasty. He’s claiming Mawhinney offered him a knighthood which is just not credible. Ashdown is looking suitably smug. Heseltine has been leading our response: ‘I thought he’d gone months ago…’

  We returned for the ‘overspill’603 at 2.30 p.m. Madam Speaker got us off to a nice start by declaring that she wants The Guardian’s range of allegations investigated as soon as possible. She’s looking for an enquiry that’s broad, speedy and ‘as transparent as possible’. That means it will include the Willetts memorandum. In the office we’ve been instructed to say nothing about it to anyone. This will not be a problem as there’s nowt to say.

  At 4.30 p.m. I descended into the bowels of the building to find Canon Donald Gray.604 The Speaker’s Chaplain has a shoe-box of an office deep underground at the far, far end of a series of ever-narrowing subterranean corridors. He is a good and kindly man, twinkly, friendly, always happy to chat. It was Andrew’s idea that I seek his advice. (Andrew got to value him in the aftermath of Stephen [Milligan]’s death. That’s also, I imagine, when Andrew got to value Julie. They are now definitely an item.605 What happened to that nice Mrs Mackay I met when I went to speak in his constituency? Well, there you go. Julie is certainly younger and prettier. Distant echoes from Michèle: ‘Men … bastards.’)

  Anyway, the point is: a couple of our charges are in a bad way, one especially so – bit of a breakdown – nowhere to go – what to do? Donald thinks there may be a monastery that could take him – provide space, solace, peace, a chance to recuperate, and he’d be within reach for critical votes. He has given me numbers and I’m to investigate.

  This is good. This is part and parcel of the whips’ service. We do care. We do try to help. We do say, ‘Here’s a doctor who can help,’ ‘Have you thought of AA?’ ‘Here’s a lawyer/accountant/shrink who can sort you out.’ When bankruptcy looms, we do look for ways to help bail them out. I’m going to see one of our friendly solicitors on Thursday on this very score. Yes, we’re doing it to safeguard the majority, secure the government’s business, but we’re also doing it because it’s good man-management. I don’t know why we can’t be more open about our role, our function, how we operate. We’re not freemasons. We’re Members of Parliament trying to make the system work in the best interests of party, government and country. It’s all the hush-hush hugger-mugger secrecy nonsense that gets us into the sort of mess we’re landed in with the wretched Willetts memo.

  TUESDAY 15 OCTOBER 1996

  The F. E. Smith dinner. Another damn fool little ‘project’ in which I should not have got myself involved. It seemed a good idea at the time … Sproat, who had once known/gone out with (?) F. E.’s daughter (granddaughter?), had the idea that the great man deserved a memorial of some kind within the precincts – not a full-length statue (reserved for former premiers) but a bust or a painting … Excellent idea … Greg Knight comes on board … Let’s set the ball rolling with a dinner … and who volunteers to ‘organise’ the dinner? Yes. First we plan it for the spring, then some crisis vote forces postponement. Then we go for the summer. Another crisis. Then we realise that we’d better get on with it because if we don’t the election will be upon us and it’s too late. So we opt for tonight, the ninetieth anniversary of F. E.’s celebrated maiden speech.

  We (I) secure the guests of honour – the only three living parliamentarians who remember F. E.: Lords Longford, Boyd-Carpenter606 and Hailsham. Hailsham is the key catch. Greg is adamant we must have Hailsham. Hailsham knew F. E., Hailsham was also Lord Chancellor, Hailsham is an orator, Hailsham will give it the sense of ‘occasion’. But Hailsham, as I discover, plays hard to catch. I approach him in the Dining Room one lunchtime. ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘I knew F. E., knew him well as a matter of fact. But I don’t get out much in the evenings.’ I ask Douglas if he’ll work on his dad. He says ‘No, I am not my father’s keeper, and if you get him I’d rather not come.’ I decide to write. I write at length, persuasively. ‘This is to be a memorable night – we need you.’ No reply. I write again, at greater length, more seductively still. ‘We need you. No one else will do.’ Eventually, the letter comes: ‘Yes, I knew F. E., knew him well. Weather permitting, I’ll come. I’ll need a c
ar.’

  The cast complete, we set about choosing the guests. The dinner is taking place at No. 12 so space is limited, around forty. We opt for whips, former whips, lawyers, chums. The Chief agrees to say a word of welcome – and, indeed, his introduction turns out to be a little gem: droll, carefully researched, hitting the right note precisely. Shana, bless her, sorts out the caterers, hiring of the silver, waitresses, wine, the diplomatic niceties of the placements. (Michael Howard calls me yesterday, ‘Please don’t seat me next to Frank Longford. I don’t think I could face a whole evening talking about Myra Hindley.’)

  6.30 p.m.: I arrive at No. 12. Everything is under control. 7.00 p.m. The guests begin to arrive. We’re dining early so there’ll be plenty of time for the speeches before the ten o’clock vote.

  7.15 p.m.: Lord Longford arrives, John Boyd-Carpenter arrives, F. E.’s son-in-law arrives.

  7.30 p.m.: Lord Hailsham arrives. Hooray! (I had sent Jenny in a taxi to Putney to fetch him. I told her to bring him whether he’d remembered or not, whether he was willing or not. In fact, he was ready and waiting.) The dinner was fine (rather tasty), I didn’t drink, and when I have responsibility for an event I never really enjoy it. I don’t relax, I can’t concentrate on the conversation I’m having.

  At last, we reached the speeches – in good time, it was around 9.00 p.m.

  I’d asked Sproat to set the scene and introduce the guests of honour. I thought he’d be rather good. He can be very good. In the event, he didn’t appear to have prepared anything, simply chuntered briefly and said ‘Here they are.’ Longford was up first. He didn’t tell us much, but he burbled with a certain eccentric charm. He was followed by John Boyd-Carpenter who didn’t tell us much either, but was commendably concise. He told us we wouldn’t want to hear a lot of old men rambling so he’d written what he had to say on a postcard. He read it out – with energy – and sat down. Then came F. E.’s son-in-law who explained that though he was indeed the son-in-law he’d never known his father-in-law who, of course, had died in 1930, so he really couldn’t tell us anything and was here under false pretences, but thank you very much for such a nice meal in such elegant surroundings.