“You know, Richard, I understand your discretion. You don’t know me and I don’t know you, but I’ll tell you one thing: I’m not going to give you long to decide if you’re playing on my side or not. I want someone who’s completely trustworthy, trustworthy to me; if that’s not you then I’ll find someone else.”
He understood immediately, and even though it took him a few days to size me up, eventually he decided to risk it and work for me without holding back.
We were roughly the same age. Richard was no more than twenty-five, and had a master’s in advertising from the best business school in London, after having graduated with a degree in history from Oxford. And he had that unmistakable air about him that rich kids always have.
A secretary, recommended by Richard himself, rounded out the team. “Maggie is pretty efficient,” he told me. I accepted his suggestion immediately.
Maggie was old enough to be our mother and knew everything there was to know. She had seen plenty of young people like us pass through the agency, and we didn’t impress her in the slightest. I was there because Scott thought I could bring some fresh ideas, but if I didn’t have some immediate success he’d fire me without thinking twice. As for Richard, he had more opportunities than I did: his father was on the board at one of the largest banks in the City and his mother, Lady Veronica, was the daughter of an earl.
Scott and Roth seemed to wash their hands of me. I called a couple of meetings with the rest of the team. It was obvious that I was supposed to make the role they’d hired me for worthwhile, and was meant to bring in some lucrative deals for the company. Maggie had warned me that Scott & Roth was suffering due to the recent economic downturn and the company’s revenues had shrunk. She knew this firsthand, as her last two years had been spent in the accounts department.
I didn’t have a clue where to start. Nobody was going to commission me to design a campaign for one of their clients: the truth was that Scott had hired me in the hope that I’d be able to repeat the same miracle as I’d performed for Green.
It was Richard who suggested to me that the agency could open a department dedicated to teaching politicians the art of communication.
“What are you talking about?” I pressed him.
“In the past the agency has designed institutional campaigns—you know, keep your city clean, use the emergency services correctly, pay your taxes, that sort of thing. But we’ve never worked directly for political parties. Personally, I think we’re missing out on opportunities.”
“That’s clear enough. But why?”
“Well, it seems that Denis Roth likes keeping friends on both sides—no one knows if he votes Labour or Conservative.”
“And Mark Scott?”
“He votes Labour—he was actually a member of the party in his student years. He stopped being an activist when he became partners with Denis, but just as a formality.”
“And what could we offer that would be different?” I asked curiously.
“I don’t know, but there may be politicians who need someone to teach them how to interact with the media, or how to feel at home in a TV studio. It came to me this weekend when I was listening to Lord Elliot—he’s a member of the House of Lords and a friend of my father’s. He was complaining that he’d been interviewed on television and it was a mess because he didn’t know which camera to look at, and he couldn’t answer some of the presenter’s trickier questions.”
“But that already exists. Every party has communications experts,” I snapped.
“Yes, but for the generals, not the troops. Perhaps we could convince the Conservative Party that some of their MPs need a training course in communication techniques, to avoid a lot of the problems that come from a lack of experience with the press. Remember that there’ll be mayoral and council elections in six months. And politicians of a certain age often don’t understand the ins and outs of communications.”
I didn’t think that this was a particularly groundbreaking idea, but frankly nothing else had come to me.
“And why would we want to offer our services to the Tories? I’d prefer Labour.”
“It’s all the same to me, but the Conservatives will pay more. But then again, we also don’t have to limit ourselves to a single party.”
“And what is it exactly that we’re going to offer them?”
“A package. Audiovisual communication techniques. They’d have someone to prep them for important debates, teach them how to avoid awkward questions, which tie looks best on television…How should I know?”
“All of that’s already done by the parties’ communication departments. And as far as I can tell, members of the Conservative Party already know which clothes to wear at what hour of the day. We’d have to offer something more. Go develop the proposal further. I’ll get to work too. Tomorrow afternoon I want a report on my desk.”
“Give me a couple of days.”
“I’m giving you twenty-four hours, not an hour more.”
“So, tomorrow afternoon.”
“Exactly.”
—
It wasn’t a great idea, but Richard was right: the parties put communications teams at the disposal of their leaders but they forgot about their other members. And in the English electoral system, candidates for any post would embark on personal campaigns, sometimes without their party giving them the necessary means to form a communication policy.
The next day Richard handed me about a dozen pages developing the idea. All that remained to be written was the cover letter: a proposal in which we’d convince potential clients that improvisation wouldn’t do in the communications era. We wouldn’t offer them a full-time service, but would rather provide courses that would teach them how to handle themselves in front of a television camera or win a debate. It would be like a game.
This was nothing that other publicity agencies weren’t offering. Richard waited for me to congratulate him on his work but I simply told him that he would have to continue developing the proposal. The kid had a well-ordered mind.
“Right, our first step should be to meet discreetly with the leader of the Conservatives. Can you take care of that?” I said.
“It’s not that easy. And before we do anything we should check with Scott.”
“You’re wrong—before we check with Scott we should check if there’s water in the well.”
“Right, but we can’t go to Westminster using the company’s name.”
“You want to cover your back.”
“Actually, you’re the one who should be covering your back. Scott and Roth will find out about the proposal immediately. They have friends in Westminster.”
“Are you giving me advice?”
Richard shrugged. Even though he worked for me, there was a limit to his loyalty, and if there were any problems he wanted to be able to say I told you so.
Even so, I decided not to consult Scott. Richard’s idea wasn’t even all that brilliant. The truth was we were going to offer them the same thing that the other agencies did, but our particular brand of snake oil would be wrapped in a bow. If Scott and Roth didn’t like my proposal the worst they could do was fire me, and that wasn’t something that particularly concerned me. I suppose my recklessness stemmed from the fact that I had a safety net. I could always go home and ask my father and grandfather to turn to one of their influential friends to give me a job. I wasn’t the type to worry about wounded pride—I have always been too practical for that.
One of the young creatives designed us a proposal that almost had me convinced. The glossy gray paper, the perfect font size, a couple of intriguing phrases…Yes, the nicely wrapped snake oil seemed almost real.
Richard resisted opening up his family’s extensive contact book of political friends to me. But he did eventually agree to set up a meeting with a university friend of his, working with the local elections coordinator of the Conservative Party.
After putting further pressure on my assistant, I managed to get a meeting held at his
club. I was beginning to understand the rules of hermetic London society, where the club one belongs to makes all the difference, and Richard’s club was the best of the best.
Charles Graham was a lot like Richard, though he dressed more formally. While Richard liked to present a certain level of informality, Graham did not deviate from the prewritten script for someone working for the Conservative Party.
I had decided that it should be Richard who would sell our services to him, convinced he’d find it easier to persuade an old university friend. But Richard’s lack of enthusiasm forced me to take the reins of the conversation.
I couldn’t have done too badly, because Graham seemed to believe that we were offering something more than the other agencies. He promised to speak with his boss and get us a meeting.
He kept his word. Two days later Richard and I were seated in front of one of those gray politicians found in every party. He got straight to the point. The local elections would be in six months and there were a number of new candidates who could use some “fine-tuning.” If our price was better than those of the other agencies, the job would be ours.
We hadn’t managed to fool him. The man was practical. He knew that Richard was the son of Philip Craig, one of the most renowned bankers in the City, and that his mother, Lady Veronica, was famous for organizing some of the finest fox hunts in the country, even attended by members of the royal family on several occasions.
Richard had warned me that gentlemen didn’t discuss money over lunch, but that same afternoon I sent a longer proposal to his friend’s office detailing what we could offer their candidates and the total cost. He called me the next day to tell me the job was ours.
“We got it,” I said excitedly to Richard.
“Great—but now comes the hard part. Frankly the quote you gave was way too low. I don’t think Scott will like it.”
“Quit worrying about Scott,” I snapped.
But he had managed to sow doubt in my mind. So I went to Scott’s office with confirmation of their acceptance of our proposal, and a meeting scheduled for the next day in which we’d sign the agreements.
Scott received me right away and invited me to sit, offering me a cup of tea. His smile turned sour as he listened to me and flicked through the file.
“How dare you make decisions without consulting me? Our agency does not work for political parties. Denis and I have always made that clear: we don’t want to dirty our hands with cockfights, which is precisely what elections are. We have friends on all sides, from the Conservatives, Labour, the Lib Dems…Call Graham and tell him there’s been a mistake—you were wrong, you’re new here, you had no idea about the workings of our agency and that’s why you didn’t know that we don’t work for political parties. Fix this shit and then…I’ll talk to Denis. Kid, you’ve failed us.”
“I’ll tell Richard to call Graham. It’s been a pleasure knowing you all.”
I stood up, ready to leave the office. There was nothing else to talk about. I wasn’t going to give them the chance to fire me, which was exactly what they were about to do.
“Stay there!” yelled Scott.
For a few moments I weighed whether to stay or go, and in the end opted to remain standing there, looking at him with indifference.
“Do you want to explain to me why you got us into this mess?”
“The agency’s balance sheet has stagnated over the past three years. You haven’t grown and it’s costing you a lot to keep all your clients. In fact, you’ve even accepted a couple of minor political campaigns. Politicians are a gold mine that anyone would try to exploit. Their main concern is to convince citizens to vote for them. They’re vain and know nothing about communication techniques, so they’re prepared to buy any old snake oil as long as it comes in a nice package.
“I’ve been studying which sectors the agency could grow in, and politics is the quickest and easiest.
“I can’t work miracles, Scott. You hired me to do something to get the agency out of this stagnation. So I did. You don’t agree, fine, that’s no problem for me. I’ll leave.”
“Sit down!”
“The conversation is over.” I was relishing my own nonchalance.
Scott was calling Denis, asking him to come to his office. As we waited we regarded each other in silence. I realized that the macho appearance he liked to present actually concealed a fragile individual.
Denis Roth entered with an unworried expression. He smiled at me like someone expecting to hear good news.
Scott filled him in, and I watched as, barely perceptibly, one of Denis’s facial muscles moved. A tic that appeared, much against his will, when he was nervous.
“You’ve really dropped us in it,” said Denis.
“I don’t see it like that. But then, this isn’t my agency, so things stand pretty clear. I’ll leave.”
“What advantages are there in working for politicians?” asked Denis bad-temperedly.
“The money. They pay well. And it’s the only sector where you can achieve growth right now. If it were my agency I’d try to do this, not just in the U.K. but in every Commonwealth country. I think that in a couple of years you could increase your earnings by thirty percent.”
“You have overstepped,” Denis interrupted me.
“Either I work with my hands untied or I don’t work at all. I left school a long time ago. You asked me for results and I’ve placed a contract on the table,” I replied brazenly.
“A piece-of-shit contract,” spat Scott.
“Yes, the budget is small. But it was the only way of convincing our Conservative friends to switch horses—why else would they? They trust this agency for its prestige, yes, but they know we have no experience in political marketing. Offering reasonable prices is one way to start. We’ve offered them a basic package, but we can offer them much more, and each extra brings in more money.
“Anyway, gentlemen, it’s clear that we’ve all made a mistake. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go get my things.”
I left the office without giving them a chance to respond. Richard was waiting for me in the hallway.
“They sacked you?” he asked.
“I sacked myself.”
“You’re the shortest-lived boss I’ve ever had.”
“Well, don’t despair, there’s always someone looking to break another record.”
I didn’t have many things in the office they’d assigned me. Nothing personal really, apart from a wallet I’d seen in a shop near my new apartment, and had bought without even looking at the price, using the money I’d gotten from Green. I went to say goodbye to Maggie but she didn’t give me a chance to speak.
“Go to Scott’s office. They’re waiting to speak with you urgently.”
I hesitated. I didn’t like scenes, and I already considered my time at Scott & Roth to be done. In the end, curiosity won me over.
Scott seemed just as nervous as Denis. He was actually pacing from one end of the office to the other as if he were dying to get out of there.
“We don’t like the way you’ve acted, but what’s done is done. Now the damage has to be minimized. You’ll have to present the same offer to the other parties, and above all guarantee complete neutrality. We will teach communication methods, but we won’t get involved in the content. We won’t invent any slogans or be associated with candidates. We’ll just teach them to communicate.” Denis delivered his whole speech without taking a breath.
“All right?” asked Scott.
“I don’t know. I don’t know if after this I’ll be able to feel comfortable at the agency. And I don’t think you trust me either. I know that something’s broken now and—”
Scott punched the desk, and from the way that he was looking at me it felt like he was ready to punch me too.
“Cut the bullshit, Thomas! You’re just an amateur who thinks you’re someone because you happened to do well with the Green business. So don’t give us some speech about being the wounded gentleman. The role doe
sn’t suit you.” Scott looked at me with fury.
“What’s done is done, Scott, and it’s not our style to feel sorry for ourselves. We’ll see if we can salvage something from this mess. Do you clearly understand what your boundaries are, Spencer? Scott and Roth will not take on electoral campaigns. We’ll only be teaching communication techniques. And now we mustn’t waste any more time. You have a lot of work ahead of you,” concluded Denis.
I shrugged. I wasn’t convinced I wanted to give up my role of the smart guy who didn’t need anyone, but I thought it best not to be out of a job.
Richard was waiting by the office door, and made a gesture to show that they had also called him in.
“Did they sack you?” Maggie asked when she saw me.
“I was out for a while, now it seems like I’m back in. I don’t know, but I also don’t care much.”
“Lucky you that you don’t need a paycheck at the end of the month.”
“That’s what happens when you have rich parents,” I replied, fully intending to irritate her.
“Yes, that must be it,” she agreed.
Richard didn’t say anything to me, but you didn’t have to be a genius to work out that Scott and Denis had told him to keep an eye on me and inform them of anything I thought up. He must have agreed. He knew not to expect anything from me.
We spent a couple of weeks meeting with politicians from all sides to sell them our proposal. We offered them nothing new, except a good price on our services and the promise that their candidates would learn in record time how to communicate with the media. To my surprise, they swallowed it whole, and we managed to get them to put us in touch with their candidates so that anyone who wanted to could use our services. The party would pay half, the candidate the rest.
“We have thirty-odd Conservative candidates, around the same for Labour, but the Lib Dems are being a bit more resistant. Oh! And this morning someone named Roy Parker called. He says he’d like to talk to us. He represents a number of people from various parts of the county of Derbyshire. He says that they’re sick of traditional parties and want to try their luck at the ballot boxes themselves. Apparently they’re going to run in ten or twelve districts,” Richard informed me.
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