Breaking the Code

by Gyles Brandreth

  ‘Edwina, you say that you have published your diary as a piece of history. I accept that. But can I read to you what I fear may be the verdict of history on you? I wrote this on the train coming to see you. “As a broadcaster, as a novelist, as a parliamentarian, she was of little consequence. Her only claim to fame was as an aspiring politician’s easy lay.”’

  Edwina interrupts: ‘I wasn’t easy—’

  ‘Let me finish. “And what is worse, she was guilty of hurting and humiliating someone who did her no harm.”’

  Edwina’s eyes are full of tears.

  ‘Gyles, I have lived my life in a truthful way. It is better to live with the truth, however unpalatable, than to live with a rosy fiction that is actually very cruel to all the people involved. I do not feel guilty. I am not ashamed. When I was a little girl, my mother used to say, “Always remember: God is watching.” Well, I do.’

  THURSDAY 7 NOVEMBER 2002

  I went to the memorial service for Gerald Campion at St Paul’s, Covent Garden. His performance as Billy Bunter on TV throughout the ’50s was one of the delights of my childhood. It was a privilege to know him.

  The memorial service for Iain Duncan Smith will be upon us shortly, I’m sure of that. His support at Westminster has evaporated completely. The week has been a total fiasco. It began with him stamping his foot about gay adoption – demanding support he could not command. By close of play on Monday, when a third of the Conservative Party in Parliament had failed to follow him into the required division lobby, even his friends were shaking their heads wearily. They knew it was a mess, and wholly unnecessary.

  What they had not reckoned on – nobody had – was their leader’s ability to turn a crisis into a calamity. Monday night’s high drama became Tuesday morning’s high farce. First, IDS failed to turn up at a scheduled press conference on housing (leaving two hapless front-bench colleagues, unbriefed, facing the cameras and blowing in the wind); next, amid mounting hysteria, he summoned the media to Central Office, managed to be filmed at the window gauchely rehearsing what the hacks took to be his resignation speech, and then appeared, not to fall on his sword, but to brandish it in the face of his colleagues and demand that the party ‘unite or die’. It wasn’t heroic: it was just embarrassing.

  On Monday night, he shot himself in the foot. On Tuesday he shot himself in the face. He is now fatally wounded. The party will survive, but he will die: it is not a question of if, but when.691

  2003

  SATURDAY 15 FEBRUARY 2003

  We had a wonderful show last night [of Zipp! at the Duchess Theatre] and two strong shows today. And in between I joined the peace march along the Strand – my first peace march since I took part in the great anti-Vietnam War march on Washington DC in 1966, when I was eighteen. This war against Iraq is wrong – and if Ken Clarke had become leader of the Conservative Party we might have been spared British involvement. Ken has been against it from the start. Given the number of Labour MPs against it, without whole-hearted Conservative support Blair might not be able to get the vote he needs in the House of Commons.692

  SUNDAY 23 MARCH 2013

  This was the week that war broke out – and I was the subject of This Is Your Life. According to President Bush and his sidekick, Tony Blair, the mission is straightforward: ‘to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people’. It may prove easier said than done, but what do I know? The invasion began on Wednesday. On Thursday the [Duchess] theatre was empty (almost) – though the show went well. And tonight, at 9.45 p.m., on stage, as the curtain fell and we were taking our calls, Michael Aspel suddenly appeared, holding his red book… ‘Gyles Brandreth, this is your life…’

  It was completely, wholly, utterly unexpected. The cast had dropped not a hint. The ‘catch’ achieved, I assumed the filming of the show would happen at a later date, but no: it happens right away, before the ‘subject’ gets a chance to run away or change their mind. By the time we got to the studio it was gone 11.00 p.m. By the time the recording was done, it was one in the morning! I walked through as though in a trance. Only two things that I remember now clearly: 1) feeling sorry for the studio audience who had waited all evening to discover who the subject was and it turned out to be me; 2) feeling overwhelmed with pride – and joy – and gratitude – when the doors on the set opened and my lovely wife and three gorgeous children walked on. They looked so beautiful.

  THURSDAY 17 APRIL 2003

  Baghdad has fallen; Tikrit has fallen; essentially the Iraq War is won, even if the fighting hasn’t stopped. I am having coffee at the Salvador Dali Museum by the St Petersburg Quayside, Sarasota, Florida, USA. The sun is shining brightly. (Perhaps God approves of our victory?) I flew in to Tampa last night to appear on the Home Shopping Network at five o’clock this morning to sell the Teddy Bear Museum range of bears to HSN viewers across the nation. Mission accomplished, I am flying back home tonight. As they say: you couldn’t make it up.

  THURSDAY 12 JUNE 2003

  Rosa Monckton’s KIDS Gala at the Grosvenor House Antiques Fair. Rosa’s daughter, Domenica, has Down’s syndrome and, famously, Diana, Princess of Wales was her godmother. But for her death Diana would have been doing the honours tonight, but in her place we have the next best thing – the actress Elizabeth Hurley – and a very good thing she turns out to be. She even comes equipped with her own equerry: her discreetly charming boyfriend, Ram. As master of ceremonies, before dinner it is my duty to escort Elizabeth around the assorted Antiques Fair stands. I do just that and I have to report that La Hurley plays her part to perfection: she is a princess in all but title. At several of the stands, the people she meets curtsey to her. I promise this is true.

  When we have walked the circuit (and Ram has collected the assorted posies and gifts presented to Elizabeth and is clutching them manfully to his chest) it is time to draw the raffle. This we do halfway up the grand staircase in the Great Room: me in the middle, Elizabeth on one side and the Prime Minister’s wife, Cherie Blair, on the other. ‘Here they are,’ I announce, ‘Elizabeth Hurley, cutie, and Cherie Booth QC.’ The crowd cheers indulgently as we draw ticket after ticket after ticket… There are too many prizes in every raffle in my experience, but what can you do? We do our best and just as we are nearing the end of the ordeal I suddenly feel a hand tugging at my trousers and I hear a voice – an American voice – hissing at me: ‘Gyles. Gyles! We’ve got royalty here. American royalty.’ I look down and there is Ruby Wax, on her knees by my knees. ‘Come on, kid. Get done with the raffle. Liza Minnelli is waiting.’

  And so it proves. Raffle done, Ruby drags me and Cherie (plus two-man police escort) and Elizabeth (plus Ram) up the stairs and into the midst of the milling throng. ‘Where is she? Where is she?’ shrieks Ruby. ‘She’s here’s somewhere. And she’s royalty. American royalty. Where the fuck’s she gone?’

  Not far, it turns out. In the middle of the mêlée we find her, slumped in a wheelchair, wrapped in a rug, wearing dark glasses and clearly in a state of desperation. ‘How do you do, Miss Minnelli?’ I gurgle. ‘I need the john,’ she gasps. ‘I need it now.’

  ‘It’s only pee-pee,’ says a high-pitched voice above her. It’s David Gest, her smooth-checked, orange-faced husband whom I think I’ve met before. ‘David,’ I cry. ‘It’s only pee-pee,’ he repeats. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘I need the john now,’ squawks Liza. ‘Now, I tell you.’ ‘Fear not,’ I cry. ‘Cherie is here, accompanied by two of Downing Street’s finest police officers. We’ll sort you out.’

  And we did. Cherie’s security guys created a path to the lift, we found our way to the floor we needed, we pushed Liza and David through the door to the ladies and waited in the corridor outside. Minutes later, David wheeled Liza out to join us. As she reappeared, she took off her dark glasses in triumph. ‘It wasn’t just pee-pee.’ She looked up at David and snarled, ‘He knows nothing.’

  It was all a bit tame af
ter that. Dinner was served, the speeches came and went, Bob Geldof was good, the auction was a struggle and then, somehow, we managed to lift Liza from her chair and hoist her onto the stage. She teetered to and fro, explaining that she couldn’t stand because she had hurt her knee falling off the stage last week while singing with Pavarotti in Rome – or was it Domingo in Madrid? She didn’t seem sure. Looking up at a huge photograph of Rosa’s daughter Domenica on the screen above the stage, with a catch in her throat, she told us, ‘I’m here for her – I’m here for lovely little Jennifer!’ ‘Domenica!’ I hissed from the wings. ‘Japonica,’ cried Liza. ‘Domenica!’ I hissed again. ‘Veronica,’ cried Liza triumphantly, blowing the photograph a kiss. ‘We all love Veronica.’

  Other highlights of the evening: John Simpson’s young wife, Dee; Liz Hurley showing me how a little bit of rolled-up cotton wool can lift a pair of breasts just so; and Cherie. I sat next to Cherie for dinner. I really like her. She is intelligent, funny and nice. We are meeting again next week – at the Tyburn Convent at Marble Arch. Cherie is giving the Tyburn Lecture. I am giving the vote of thanks.

  TUESDAY 4 NOVEMBER 2003

  I sat with Robin Cook at the Oldie literary lunch. Talking about Iraq, he was wholly persuasive. I reminded him how rare it is for ministers to resign on principle. ‘Usually it’s a scandal that forces them from office,’ I said. ‘It was Blair’s obduracy that drove me out,’ he said.693 ‘He wanted the invasion. He would not be moved.’ When John Smith died, Robin Cook was the potential Labour leader we most feared. He was a formidable debater – the best of their lot by far. But he looks like a cross between a ginger-nut biscuit and a garden gnome. He hadn’t a prayer.

  In my time, our only rival to Cook as a forensic debater was Michael Howard – and this week Michael becomes the Conservative leader and the party breathes a collective sigh of relief. After the aberration of IDS, we will have a safe pair of hands – a proper, grown-up leader. Will he become Prime Minister? That, alas, is another matter – though what an adornment Sandra would be to No. 10!

  That’s where I am just in from – No. 10. An hour or so ago I was sitting in the green drawing room on a sofa, alone with Cherie. (I was early for the Longford Trust reception.) She’s sprained her ankle so I sat with her feet by my lap and told her wonderful she is. And she is. Wonderful but needy. She clings to Tony when she sees him because she doesn’t see him enough – and (according to Alastair Campbell) Tony resists her because he finds the clinging oppressive.

  2004

  TUESDAY 6 JANUARY 2004

  We were at the pizza parlour in Franschhoek [a small town in the Western Cape Province, South Africa, on holiday] when a call came from Sally [Bulloch] to say that Lady Thatcher would be coming for tea and could we come too. Sally was manager of the Athenaeum Hotel in Piccadilly when the Thatchers were living there ‘between houses’. Lady T. likes Sally, trusts her, and here on holiday with Mark (who has a house in Cape Town) is looking for things to do, people to see, ways to pass the time. She was in much brighter form than I had expected – looking wonderfully groomed, elegant and summery, and really pleased to see me – not because she really knows who I am but because she knows that I was an MP and we could talk politics. That’s all she wants to do: that’s all that interests her. We had a good political gossip – she very much approves of Michael Howard as leader, but she was happiest talking about the old days. She was very funny about the self-indulgence of Peter Morrison, Reggie Maudling and Roy Jenkins – and absolutely spot-on. I was interested to find that she had the measure of Peter Morrison – that was a surprise.

  It was clear that she misses Denis [who died in June 2003] quite dreadfully. She dotes on Mark, but never talks about Carol. There was not much sign of her mental ‘frailty’, except that she was occasionally fretful – looking around anxiously and saying she wanted to go home. ‘I need to be at the House of Lords. There’s business to attend to. I should be there – voting. When are we flying back?’

  Crawfie [Lady Thatcher’s assistant, Cynthia Crawford] was in attendance with her husband – who was dressed in khaki safari shorts like a character from Carry On Up the Zambesi – and clearly in no rush to return to London. ‘We’re going back in a week or so,’ she said.

  ‘I want to go back now,’ insisted Lady T.

  ‘You can’t go yet,’ said Crawfie firmly. ‘You must come to tea when we’re back in London,’ she said to us. We must. Lady T.’s achievement is extraordinary – and she is very sweet. It is a privilege to know her.

  FRIDAY 16 JULY 2004

  Train to Manningtree. John and Penny Gummer pick me up to take me to Wissett for the ‘Annual Lunch’. Penny anxious that I might say the wrong things, John tells the story of being asked on the way to a similar event (by Mrs Michael Grylls, in a neck brace, turning her whole body while driving) ‘not to give the talk Teresa Gorman gave last month … on HRT … We’ve heard all we need to hear about dry vaginas…’

  I spoke in a barn with two tents attached. The rains came. The downpour was torrential. They sat there, in a sauna, with the rain gushing in – under umbrellas. I am pleased to report that my speech went well, but I am so glad (so glad!) I do not have to do this every weekend. Who would be an MP?

  MONDAY 19 JULY 2004

  Drink with Michael Howard in the leader’s office, overlooking the Thames. Half bottle of Chablis on green sofas. He’s buttoned up. I make him laugh about our daughters larking about in New York. He relaxes a little – not much. And then we get down to business. It’s just the two of us.

  Michael has been leader for nine months now. He’s known ups and downs, but this has been a bad week – the worst. It’s perceived in media-land as being all over. They are not talking about the general election – the result of that is a foregone conclusion. They’re talking about the leadership election after the general election.

  Michael knows all this. He’s no fool. And he’s clearly deeply frustrated that his message isn’t coming across.

  ‘You have a message?’ I say, smiling.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he says, ‘I know what I want to do and why…’ and as he sits forward and says it, he becomes more real, infinitely more attractive…

  I’m there to talk about jokes – but I tell him he doesn’t need jokes. People don’t need him to be funny: they need him to be human – and convincing. We talk about Bill Clinton and his extraordinary ability to command an emotional response, to inspire and connect.

  As Michael gets up and goes to the door to call in the others, I sit there thinking, ‘Do I want to become involved? Is there any point? He is a good man, but is this going to get us anywhere?’

  The team: Ed694 is very likeable, Rachel Whetstone has become a bit of a spinny – more than a touch of the bossy-boots schoolmarm. Michael brings them in; cancels the seven o’clock meeting; senses that we’re on to something. It can’t wait until the party conference. Let’s do something now … ‘Gyles, 19 July 2004 marks the nadir, the nadir – is that how you pronounce it? Now we have seen the way ahead…’

  THURSDAY 29 JULY 2004

  ‘We’re fucked, Gyles, utterly fucked.’ Ed Vaizey, speech-writer to the Leader of the Opposition, sums up the prospects for his party and his leader nine months or a year ahead of the next election.

  I like Ed. He’s droll and savvy and fully aware that the situation is dire and the leader’s set-up a shambles. ‘All you need to be Leader of the Opposition is to be able to do two things: head up the fund-raising, head-up the strategy.’

  ‘What’s the strategy?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  I said how much I like Michael, how effective he’d seemed at the Home Office, but how I wasn’t yet sure what more there was…

  ‘There isn’t.’

  ‘The magic?’

  ‘There won’t be.’

  Ed was hoping to get to know Michael better this coming week on holiday in Italy. He and Rachel have gone the past few years to stay with Anne Robinson (& Penrose) on holiday
in Italy. This year the Howards are coming too. Except that while Ed and I are having tea the call comes that it’s too hot in Italy and Anne is coming home – but the rest are welcome to go as planned. Michael and Sandra have already bought their tickets.

  Ed is anxious about Wantage. He’s put in two years and thinks the Lib Dems could win. He’s been outed as one of the ‘Notting Hill Tories’. The Lib Dems will call him the Member for Notting Hill in Wantage. ‘I’m fucked. Michael’s fucked. The holiday’s fucked. We’re all fucked.’

  I went on from tea on the terrace at the House of Commons to a drink at the Charlotte Street Hotel with Charlotte Bush – publisher’s publicist and the only woman I’ve met who hasn’t fallen for Bill Clinton. ‘He’s so flabby.’ She was looking after the great man’s book tour, but barely got beyond the entourage (three cars and a minibus for security) – especially disliking the overweight young woman who was ‘the President’s scheduler’.

  Supper with Joanna Lumley up the road at Tanur, where Jo ordered the mezze and it came: ten starters on a tray. We shan’t be going again. Fortunately if you held the Pinot Grigio right up to your nose you could mask the stench from the toilets…

  THURSDAY 23 SEPTEMBER 2004

  Michael Howard meeting on how to handle PMQs. The outsiders at the meeting (from the world of marketing) don’t get it – that Michael has to make it work in the House for the sake of his troops’ morale … It has to work in the chamber and on TV … The usual talk: get women into the doughnut, make the sound bite real etc. Nothing has changed in ten years. Even the cast seems much the same: David Cameron (impressive), George Osborne (earnest), Rachel Whetstone (at the far end of the table and very much in command of the show: we worked to her agenda). I sat next to Michael and we smiled at one another knowingly as the young ones rabbited on. The meeting served no purpose whatsoever.