Breaking the Code

by Gyles Brandreth

  I am saying nothing. As an MP, you only meet two types of people: people with problems and people who are right. I marvel that everyone seems to have the answer to everything. What I discovered in Whitehall and Westminster is that, in truth, nobody really knows anything. (Even at the Treasury where they really do think they know it all.)

  It is so good to be here, away from all that. I can see Mount Etna in the distance. We are planning an expedition to Syracuse, where the boys come from. But first, lunch: vitello tonnato and a glass of Frascati, I think, don’t you?

  FRIDAY 30 MAY 1997

  I am on the train, going to Leeds, to record Countdown – six episodes. (And, yes, madam, since you ask, they do feed you the words through an earpiece. But, no, I won’t be wearing any wacky jumpers. ‘Time for a change’ and all that.) I am so lucky. I am picking up where I left off. Countdown called immediately after the election. CBS News called. LBC called. I have a contract for a new novel. I have work − and plenty of it. Many of my colleagues have nothing – nothing and no prospects. People like Derek Conway (who called just now) had huge majorities and still they lost – and now his children will have to be taken out of boarding school. People think there are ‘directorships’ and all sorts of goodies awaiting ex-MPs. Not so. What use is an ex-Tory MP to anyone? This is Blair’s Britain. This is the age of New Labour. Old Tories have nothing to offer. Their contacts are outdated: their skills (such as they are!) irrelevant. It’s fine for the few who are famous – e.g. Michael Portillo – but most of my former colleagues are shop-soiled, unknown, unfashionable and the wrong side of fifty. The best they can hope for is something in the charity sector.658

  MONDAY 2 JUNE 1997

  Just before the election, in the Tea Room of the House of Commons, queuing up for a toasted teacake, I found myself standing next to Jack Straw. He was grinning from ear to ear. ‘Why are you looking so cheerful?’ I asked. ‘Because I have been sitting here doing nothing for eighteen years – eighteen years! – and this time next month it looks as if I’ll be Home Secretary.’ And so he is. And well done him. (He beat me to it, after all.)

  After lunch (sole off the bone, at Le Vendome in Dover Street, with Laurie Mansfield, agent to the stars, organiser of the Royal Variety Performance) I walked to Pimlico, to Stephen Dorrell’s campaign headquarters. He hopes to be Leader of the Conservative Party – what’s left of it. He is a good man, but it won’t happen. He has no following – and I have no interest any more. Either you are in there or you’re not. And I’m not.

  WEDNESDAY 4 JUNE 1997

  Stephen has thrown in the towel. He’s backing Ken [Clarke]. We went together to Ken’s office this morning. John Gummer, David Curry, Michael Mates were there. They think their man’s in with a chance. There was high excitement in the air. I felt the complete outsider. I shouldn’t have gone.

  THURSDAY 19 JUNE 1997

  William Hague has defeated Ken Clarke by twenty-two votes and, at thirty-six, has become the youngest leader of the Conservative Party since Pitt the Younger. ‘Much good will it do him,’ says Michèle. ‘No one is interested in your lot any more. The people have spoken, Gyles. Listen to the people.’

  I do. I have. This week I am writing a children’s book: The Adventures of Mouse Village. Next week I start my novel: Venice Midnight. (Jo Lumley gave me the title. I was calling it Venice at Midnight. She said, ‘Venice Midnight is much more intriguing.’) I am getting on with life in the real world. My friend Seb Coe, by contrast, has thrown in his lot with William. He is already his right-hand man. ‘What’s the point?’ asks M.

  ‘If he sticks with it,’ I reply, ‘he’ll be offered the first safe seat that comes up or a place in the House of Lords.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘I know so. I know how the system works.’

  ‘Is that what you want?’ she asks – and I don’t reply. The truth is: I’m not sure. (Actually, the truth is I can’t afford to play at politics. I have a living to earn.)

  SATURDAY 28 JUNE 1997

  We went to Cambridge to watch Benet take his degree. We went on afterwards to the Master’s drinks at Magdalene. The sun shone. The young people looked so happy. We parents looked so proud. This is what life is about.

  SUNDAY 31 AUGUST 1997

  I came down into the kitchen to make the early morning tea and turned on the television and heard the news. Princess Diana is dead.

  I called Michèle and we just stood there watching. We just stood there. It was quite difficult to take in. I went out to buy the papers and, amazingly, the News of the World had produced a 6.00 a.m. ‘shock issue’:

  DIANA DEAD. Princess Diana died just after 3.00 a.m. London time today after a horrific car crash in Paris. Her boyfriend Dodi Al-Fayed and the driver of their Mercedes were killed instantly when the car slammed into a wall in a tunnel along the Seine river near the Champs-Elysées.

  LATER

  It’s wall-to-wall Diana. Charles has gone to Paris to collect the body. William and Harry are at Balmoral with the Queen and Prince Philip. Blair has been on the box and brilliant – if you like that sort of thing. William [Hague] botched it utterly.

  MONDAY 1 SEPTEMBER 1997

  Last night Saethryd went over to Kensington Palace and joined the crowds. They came in all shapes and sizes – a lot of black people, a lot of gays – and they all brought flowers to lay at the palace gates. The outpouring of emotion is extraordinary. There are pictures in the paper of William and Harry being driven to church with Charles yesterday: no tears there, just stiff upper lips. But the rest of the world is awash. And they have all got something to say: Mother Teresa, Lady Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela. Even James Hewitt’s mother Shirley has thrown in her two cents’ worth: ‘He’s in a state of shock.’659

  I am sorry for Diana, of course. And for her sons. This is a tragedy – but it is their tragedy, not mine. I cannot say that I am feeling this personally, as the rest of the world seems to be doing. I am out of step with the rest of mankind. Mr Blair has his finger on the national pulse: ‘She was the people’s princess and that is how she will remain in our hearts and our memories forever.’

  FRIDAY 5 SEPTEMBER 1997

  It’s completely out of hand. The world has lost the plot. The issue of the hour appears to be the Buckingham Palace flagpole. As anyone who knows anything knows, the flagpole is traditionally bare except when the sovereign is in residence when the royal standard is flown. And the royal standard is never flown at half mast, even on the death of a sovereign. But the tabloids are having none of that – they are baying for blood. Actually, they are baying for tears. ‘Show us you care, Ma’am!’ Well, the Queen doesn’t cry – and certainly not in public – but she has bowed to public opinion and the union flag is now flying over Buckingham Palace at half mast.

  LATER

  I have just watched the Queen’s live broadcast. It was perfectly judged. It will have diffused the anger. She did not say anything she did not mean. She did not go over the top. But she did enough.

  SATURDAY 6 SEPTEMBER 1997

  We sat in the kitchen and watched Diana’s funeral. Tony Blair’s over-emotional reading of the lesson was an embarrassment, but other than that it all worked. Charles Spencer’s tribute to his sister was very touching – even if it didn’t quite make sense. (Prince Charles and the royals are William and Harry’s ‘blood family’ too, surely?) When he’d finished, the crowd outside applauded – and the applause was taken up by the congregation inside the abbey. ‘The people’s princess’ indeed. I imagine the Queen is utterly bewildered by it all.

  LATER

  Interesting call just now. I was surprised to see Prince Philip in the formal funeral procession, walking behind the gun carriage bearing Diana’s coffin along the route to Westminster Abbey, but I have now learnt why he was there. Prince Charles and Charles Spencer were expected to walk, with the boys, but it seems that Prince Harry and, in particular, Prince William were initially reluctant. The Duke of Edinburgh, who had not
planned to walk (he is merely the ex-father-in-law, after all), said to William, ‘If you don’t walk, you may regret it later. I think you should do it. If I walk, will you walk with me?’

  THURSDAY 9 OCTOBER 1997

  Yesterday, I wasted half a day reworking the peroration for William Hague’s end-of-conference speech. I have just faxed it over. It won’t be used – and William doesn’t need help from outsiders anyway. This kind of thing comes naturally to him. Far (far) too much time is spent on the leader’s speech at conference. (My favourite conference speech story is John Whittingdale’s660 about Mrs T. and the Monty Python parrot sketch. They had drafted a paragraph for her in which the Liberal Party was likened to the dead parrot − ‘This is an ex-party’ etc. Mrs T. didn’t get it. They explained to her: ‘It’s a joke, Prime Minister, from Monty Python. It’s very funny. It will work. Trust us.’ Reluctantly, she went along with it, but she had her reservations to the last. Even as she was approaching the podium to deliver the speech, she said to John Whittingdale: ‘This Monty Python – is he one of us?’)

  1998

  TUESDAY 28 APRIL 1998

  In advance of next week’s referendum, I took part in the Evening Standard/Newsnight ‘debate on London’. We don’t need a Mayor for London. We certainly don’t need a new ‘Assembly’.661 I thought we Conservatives were supposed to believe in less bureaucracy, not more; in containing public expenditure, not extending it; in encouraging grass-roots democracy, not imposing additional tiers of know-it-all, top-down government. We have elected members in thirty-two London boroughs already. Enough’s enough. And as for Jeffrey [Archer] promising to work ‘nineteen hours a day, 364 days a year’ running the capital, heaven forfend! I said some of this tonight, not very well and to little effect. What I didn’t say is that I have already been approached about the possibility of becoming the Conservative mayoral candidate – not because they want me, but because they want anyone but Jeffrey. I know they’ve tried to persuade Seb [Coe], too. The approach was not altogether flattering: ‘Don’t worry, you won’t win. London votes Labour. We expect to lose, but let’s lose quietly and with dignity – that means without Jeffrey.’

  SUNDAY 10 MAY 1998

  Late night, lots of laughs: Joanna and Stevie, Biggins and Neil [Sinclair, his partner] Nikko Grace662 and Ian, Lynda Bellingham.663 Non-stop laughter, in fact. (Can’t remember what about, but it was good for the soul.) Early start: Breakfast with Frost at 11 Downing Street. I told David that Joanna would like to be asked to his summer party: she will be. I told the Chancellor [Gordon Brown] it was good to be back in Downing Street: he said he’d been amused to read my articles about my time at the Treasury. ‘You lot seemed to do a lot of eating and drinking and telling jokes. We don’t tell jokes.’ I can believe it. He is grouchily amiable, but so earnest – and still biting his fingernails to the quick. After the show, he took us upstairs to his flat. He lives above No. 10, while Blair and family are in the No. 11 duplex, which is bigger and more like a proper house. I was intrigued that when he took us into his bedroom, the Chancellor rather ostentatiously opened the built-in wardrobes as if he wanted us to see the women’s frocks that were hanging in there. They looked quite large, but I don’t think they belong to Gordon. I assume they belong to his girlfriend.664 I presume he was keen for us to know that he has one – and that she’s not a ‘beard’. I don’t think he does anything without calculation.

  TUESDAY 12 MAY 1998

  This morning I was on the radio being touted as a possible mayoral candidate. I pointed out to the listeners that last week’s referendum showed that three-quarters of Londoners either don’t want a Mayor or don’t care. I said that if I stand and if I’m elected, I’ll do nothing: no press conferences, no initiatives, no grandiose strategies, nothing. Best of all, I’ll even give the money back. (The Mayor and Assembly are going to cost £20 million p.a. minimum. It’s truly appalling.)

  This afternoon, tea at the House of Commons with Virginia Bottomley. We talked about the mysteries of the honours system and her plans for the future. She’s going to be a headhunter. Afterwards, as I was walking through Central Lobby, I bumped into Benazir Bhutto.665 I greeted her like a long-lost buddy – which she is – but clearly my cheery informality was not what was expected. I remember her being rather fun at Oxford in the ’70s. She took herself very seriously today. I tried to disarm her. ‘It’s only me,’ I said.

  ‘So I see,’ she replied.

  ‘It’s just us, Benazir,’ I persisted.

  ‘We are in the Palace of Westminster,’ she answered crisply. ‘A certain decorum is called for.’

  MONDAY 27 JULY 1998

  By coincidence, lunch with Norman Lamont and tea with Julian Clary.666 I didn’t mention one to the other. I don’t think they have met since the notorious night when Julian announced on live TV667 that he had ‘just been fisting Norman Lamont … talk about a red box…’ The audience roared and I doubt that Norman minded, but it played badly in the press and, for a while, derailed Julian’s career.

  Five years on, they are both doing fine, even if the glory days are gone. Norman is stouter, but still fun – obsessed with the dangers of the euro, still brooding on the injustice done to him by John Major, and he appears to have mislaid his nice wife along the way. Julian is tall and slim and beautiful – the beauty of his face is extraordinary. But he is about to turn forty and needs to do something new, hence our meeting. I told him about the bizarre life of Henry Paget, 5th Marquess of Anglesey – ‘the dancing marquess’. He died young in 1905, celebrated for his beauty, notorious for his extravagance, his eccentricity (he would lie naked in a coffin covered only in jewels), his non-consummated marriage (he was gay), his love of theatre. He put on his own shows and starred in them, with the estate staff as extras. There’s a film in this – it has everything: love, heartache, skulduggery, buggery, Monte Carlo and bust – and, if beautifully written, could be a break-out vehicle for Julian. Except, I don’t think he was very interested. And I’m not sure he can act.

  THURSDAY 17 DECEMBER 1998

  I have decided to like Cherie Blair, partly because others seem to despise her (she doesn’t take a good photograph: mouth like a letter box), but mainly because she has been very helpful and friendly, lending me ‘Tony Blair’s Teddy Bear’ to put on display at our Teddy Bear Museum. The bear is called Lynton (as in Anthony Charles Lynton Blair) and today, after his long holiday with us in Stratford, I took the little fellow back to Downing Street. As Iraq was being bombed,668 I stood in the hallway of No. 10, holding the bear in my arms, waiting for Cherie, when who should come marching into the building but John Prescott. I said, ‘Hello, John.’ He simply glowered. His face turned purple with suppressed rage. Anger, rudeness, resentment are his stockin-trade. (And yet, apparently, he stills gets the girls. It’s almost incredible, but they say it’s so. There were hacks haunting Chester when I was there, digging for dirt about JP.)

  1999

  MONDAY 1 FEBRUARY 1999

  An evening among the fallen – rather jolly, as it happens. Supper with Neil and Christine Hamilton at their flat on Albert Bridge Road. They fight on – they fight to win.669 They are like things possessed: Neil drinking too much, Christine on manic overdrive. But they are still fun, still friends, and Christine is a fine cook and a generous hostess. Also of the party: a remarkably sanguine Jonathan Aitken. He thinks prison is a possibility. He seems quite ready for it.670

  FRIDAY 23 JULY 1999

  Breakfast with Jeffrey in the Archer embankment penthouse. I went to interview him for the Sunday Telegraph. He wants to be Mayor of London – the first. He is campaigning hard. ‘It’s going well, Gyles. I don’t want anything to go wrong. I’ve got to be careful. I know I can trust you.’

  We are not alone. It is 8.20 a.m. and already, up in the gallery, Jeffrey’s PA is fielding phone calls. Joseph, the butler (of Middle European extraction and riper years, straight from Central Casting), pads discreetly in and out. While Jeffrey and I tuck in (for the
master, a boiled egg, timed to the second; for me, crunchy brown toast and the crispest bacon), two of the mayoral campaign team sit quietly in attendance. They do not eat. Or speak. Jeffrey runs his life as though he’s a character in one of his own novels.

  I know almost no one who doesn’t mock him, but I know few so successful – at least in monetary terms. What is his secret?

  Boundless energy. Determination. And when I see something, I go for it. Longfellow said, ‘The heights that great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, toiled ever upward through the night.’ Later he offered me another gem: ‘Energy plus talent, you’ll be a king; energy and no talent, you’ll be a prince; talent and no energy, you’ll be a pauper.’