The Image in the Water

by Douglas Hurd

  ‘Thanks. That lad of yours is riding well. But did you get your letter?’

  ‘Letter?’

  ‘It was something urgent from Manston. Your gardener brought it up on his motorbike, looking for you. He saw young Roger first, gave it to him. I suppose the idle young sod forgot.’

  Roger turned and found his son who, with a muttered apology, produced the envelope from the back pocket of his breeches. It was bent now and heavily smudged with sweat but the words ‘Urgent’ on the front and the red government crest on the back stood out. Inside was a regular Government Hospitality card.

  The Prime Minister

  requests the pleasure of the company

  of

  The Rt Hon. Sir Roger Courtauld, MP

  at dinner

  in honour of

  His Excellency Mr Adi Husseni

  Prime Minister of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

  at Chequers

  on Thursday, 31st July

  7.30 for 8 pm

  Black Tie

  Rather odd. True, Roger had once been involved with Jordan, in the days before he became Home Secretary when he was casting around as a backbencher for subjects of interest. He had visited the country twice and joined the Anglo-Jordanian Friendship Society. But that had been a long time ago. There was no reason why old Turnbull should ask him to Chequers to meet the visiting Prime Minister of Jordan, and certainly no reason why he should go to a dull official occasion in the middle of the polo season.

  The stiff card did not slide easily back into its envelope. It had come up against a half sheet of notepaper. Roger recognised the Prime Minister’s own hand: ‘Please come if you can. It would be good to have a talk. Politics are in a dangerous state. I may need your help. I would count it as a favour if you would stay the night.’

  Cryptic, but enough to draw Roger back into the world he thought he had left for good.

  *

  The Prime Minister of Jordan was an ideal guest for this occasion. Having passed out from Sandhurst thirty years earlier he knew the rudiments of an English official dinner. Under King Hussein, his grandfather had moved up the social scale from the merchant to the military, tendering stalwart service to the King when he led a battalion against Arafat’s guerrillas up and down the hills of Amman in the autumn of 1970. Both his father and his uncle had served the Hashemites briefly as Prime Minister, a role into which he himself had slipped gracefully when the call came.

  For an hour before dinner he had sat with his British counterpart John Turnbull in the study at Chequers, each of them with a private secretary scribbling at his elbow. The agenda was not exciting. The Jordanians were in the market for tanks again, but the credit being offered by the British export authorities struck them as mean. Without entering into detail (it was, after all, two generations since his family had bargained in public) the Prime Minister wished to make clear that they hoped for better. He needed EU support in a long-running argument with Israel over the costs of replenishing the Dead Sea, now so diminished and over-salted that the tourists were staying away. But none of these were testing matters. If the Jordanian really wanted to ask about the disturbed state of Britain, the flag-waving riots in the streets, the extraordinary virulence of the Conservative Opposition, he was far too polite to do so.

  After the business talks, the two men joined the guests for dinner. The commandant of Sandhurst of course, a distinguished lady novelist, a bank chairman, a trade-union leader, a couple of Labour backbenchers, all in black tie – in this as in other matters John Turnbull followed traditional ways, the Labour version, but without any hint of the raffish media-driven innovations of the Blair era. A large photograph of Clement Attlee, the Prime Minister Turnbull most admired, stood on the grand piano of the Great Hall, to which they adjourned for coffee. The Jordanian was not surprised to find two Conservative grandees at the table, Roger Courtauld and Peter Makewell, though he would have been more interested to meet David Alcester, whose name was in every headline. The Leader of the Opposition had refused his request for a meeting on the grounds of pressing work elsewhere. The Jordanian took a malt whisky with his coffee, more as a cultural statement than because he wanted to linger. By eleven o’clock he and the other guests had departed, except for Makewell and Courtauld. With a word of appreciation to Mrs Turnbull, they and the Prime Minister adjourned to the study and sat easily in the big armchairs before the log fire. For all three this was politics as they liked it. The Prime Minister lit a pipe. He believed in silence as a political tactic, but this evening he had to lead off.

  ‘Thanks for staying,’ he said. After a pause, ‘Your party’s leading us a fearful dance.’ Another pause. He fished a folded piece of paper from his coat pocket. ‘These will be tomorrow’s headlines. A riot in York. Forty arrested. Scottish bus hijacked in the middle of Newcastle. SLA march through Perth; police use tear gas. The official Edinburgh Festival cancelled. The fringe festival may descend into anarchy, say organisers. Alcester at Nottingham calls for Parliament to sit into August to pass Tory Independence Bill. A load of nonsense, of course. All of it.’ He puffed. ‘But it’s getting out of hand.’

  ‘I don’t think either of us has any control over Alcester,’ said Roger.

  ‘Nor influence,’ added Peter Makewell.

  ‘He’s your son-in-law.’ The pipe stem pointed at Peter.

  ‘That makes it more difficult.’

  ‘I see.’ Pause. ‘It’s late. I won’t beat about the bush. I have a plan, not put to Cabinet, just here in my head. I’ll share it with you two if you answer one question correctly. A reasonable question. If either of you answers no, then we’ll to bed.’

  Roger Courtauld savoured the malt whisky. Some of the best moments in politics came in dialogue across the party boundary.

  ‘What’s the question?’

  ‘Are you in principle willing to help me preserve the Union, even if it means breaking with Alcester?’

  ‘That would be the end of him,’ said Roger. ‘And ensure that Labour won the next election. Why should we want that?’

  ‘The first, yes,’ said Turnbull. ‘The second, who can tell? That’s three years away.’

  The two Conservatives could have asked for time to consult each other in private. They were not personally close enough for either to think of this.

  ‘My answer to your question is yes,’ said Roger. ‘In principle.’

  ‘So is mine,’ said Peter Makewell. ‘But, of course, it depends on what we make of your plan.’

  ‘If Cabinet approves, I will write this week to Alcester, accepting that the House should sit into August, but not to consider Scottish independence – we will put forward a Bill for a referendum on the Union. To be held at the end of September. Not just in Scotland – everywhere. Do you support the continuance of the United Kingdom? Yes or no.’

  ‘The polls are against you. In both Scotland and the rest. Consistently they favour separation.’

  ‘So it’s a gamble. But I believe Alcester has overreached himself. The heart of England and the heart of Scotland don’t like all this shouting and violence. They don’t like being ranted at day in day out by the tabloids that Alcester has in his pocket. That’s not the way we take decisions in this country – and it still is one country. But I’d need your help. “Conservatives for the Union”, something like that. Joint literature, joint platforms. Vote yes for the future.’

  ‘We’re old,’ said Peter Makewell.

  ‘So are most people,’ said Turnbull sharply, as if he had argued this point before. ‘I rescued the Labour Party from Youth with a capital Y. It did us a power of harm, that fashion. The fashionmongers forget that young people change their ideas as they grow old, get kids, settle down. They want a settled country too. That’s why we still have a monarchy and something called the House of Lords. Now it’s you Tories who’ve caught the disease. It’ll do you no good either.’

  ‘Nothing to do with the two of us,’ said Roger.

  You let him in, t
he Prime Minister almost said, but bit off the sentence before speaking. It was not that kind of conversation.

  Roger thought of Turnbull’s phrase ‘the heart of England’. He had just come from the heart of England, the plateau looking north and south, sun and shadow chasing each other over soft green slopes and hedges, villages now friendly with roses, young men foolish on ponies, endless conversation about the weather. For Turnbull the heart of England must be something quite different, shirt-sleeved argument in a Huddersfield bar, the click of snooker in the Labour club, the roar of a football crowd on a November afternoon as the cold came down. Both out-of-date images of course, but compatible. They lingered on, both of them. Turnbull had dealt neatly with that point about youth and age.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ he said.

  ‘I need till breakfast,’ said Peter.

  The other two guessed that he needed to telephone Louise, and did not blame him.

  Over the kedgeree at eight next morning Peter Makewell agreed. Roger had a condition to add. ‘If we get a good yes vote, no snap election. We’re saving the Union, not the Labour Party.’

  Turnbull was ready. ‘Agreed. No election for at least two years, unless I come to you in some emergency.’

  The three shook hands, self-consciously. It was not really necessary. The long years of opposing each other had created mutual trust.

  From the evening of the dinner at Chequers for the Prime Minister of Jordan events moved quickly, in a direction that, later, most people felt was profitable. It did not seem so at the time.

  GAMBLE OF A WISE MAN

  By Alice Thomson, in the Daily Telegraph Sometimes it is a mistake to seize the initiative, as Lord Cardigan found at Balaclava. The Prime Minister has launched his Light Brigade down the valley at the Conservative guns. The odds are against him. For eight weeks now public opinion polls have shown big majorities across the United Kingdom in favour of independence for Scotland, the policy that David Alcester has enthusiastically embraced since the kidnap of his son. The majority in favour of Scottish independence is now actually larger in England than in Scotland. Long-standing unease in England and Wales about the privileged position of the Scots inside the Union has been transformed this summer into active resentment. The Conservative leadership has managed to convert resentment into active anger, and its offshoot New England has loosed this anger into the streets. A dangerous tactic is now running out of control, and it is not surprising that the Prime Minister decided he must exert himself before the summer holidays. Characteristically his initiative announced yesterday is an attempt to jerk the discussion back into traditional channels, first Parliament, then a referendum.

  The first key vote will come in the Commons next week on the second reading of the Government’s Bill providing for a referendum. The Commons will certainly pass the Bill, as will the Lords, for there is no serious dissent in the Parliamentary Labour Party. What will count, however, is the size and quality of the majority, which could powerfully affect the result of the referendum in September.

  Watch two factors in particular. Most important, how much disagreement exists in the Conservative Party? David Alcester has no deep claim on its allegiance. He fought his way to the top quite recently by tactics that many disliked. He allowed his own personal drama to affect at least the timing and probably the substance of policy. He then bludgeoned a weak Shadow Cabinet into accepting his decision. He has established personal control over the New England Movement, whose noisy tactics make many Conservatives uneasy. Where does all this leave traditional Conservative stalwarts, such as Roger Courtauld and Peter Makewell? It leaves them silent – not a peep out of either of them, or out of the dozen or so other backbenchers who would follow their lead. They will have to make their position clear at the second reading or before. In the constituencies the activists are still in love with David Alcester’s slashing style. But just behind the activists in most Associations is a bigger range of traditionalists, brought into the Party in the time of Simon Russell, standing for sober orthodox politics in reaction originally to the shallowness of New Labour. What do these Conservatives make of New England and David Alcester? In London we can identify the question, but not the answer. Courtauld, Makewell and others may give us their answer soon.

  Finally, the Scots themselves. Holding office demurely in Edinburgh, the First Minister Robert Fraser is, of course, in favour of Scottish independence. He leads the Scottish Nationalist Party, for whom independence has long been the main aim. But he is not pressing for independence, immediately. ‘Prepare to be strong’ has been his watchword ever since he became First Minister. Canny lawyer that he is, he enjoys squeezing money and even greater autonomy out of the Labour Government in London. He may calculate that he is in a stronger position now, forever manoeuvring on the edge of independence, than he ever would be in an independent Scotland. Yet the horrid prospect of real independence now confronts him – independence gained not by careful profitable negotiation clause by clause with London, but forced by his own half-violent rivals the SLA and by anti-Scottish feeling in England, which must in the long run do Scotland real harm. The SLA still hold hostage his personal friend and colleague the Lord Advocate James Cameron. In his inner heart I am sure Robert Fraser would like to vote yes. He would like to preserve the Union a little longer for him to criticise and exploit. There might be more support in Scotland for such a stance than most commentators realise. But how could he justify such a vote to his party? Once again a question easy to pose, impossible to answer. It will be an unsettled summer, south and north of the Border.

  Editorial in Thunder:

  Monday, 1 July

  STRAIGHT TALKS AT LAST

  At last we have it straight. At last the Tory Party has a leader worth the name. Russell, Makewell, Courtauld – clever men, no doubt, but clever in spinning little webs of mystery and deceit. My proudest moment as editor of Thunder came when we exposed Roger Courtauld and stopped his bid for Downing Street. We had to live through the short reign of Peter Makewell ending in Tory defeat. But that defeat was worth while. It brought to the fore a brave young leader who prefers light to darkness. David Alcester has shone his searchlight into the dark corners of the Union and found them full of deception and fraud. ‘The Scots want to go: let them go. Get rid of them now.’ That’s the simple message. It comes from the streets. It comes from the opinion polls. It comes from our Thunder readers. David Alcester has heard it and agrees. John Turnbull had heard it and is trying to frustrate it.

  Thunder stands four square for Freedom – Freedom for Scotland, Freedom for England. And we give a word of warning to any ancient Tories who might use this crisis to stab young David in the back. We won’t stand for it. Go back to your country houses, your grouse moors and polo lawns. Your time has gone: David is here with his sling and stone, ready for Goliath.

  Extract from record of Scottish Parliament debate, Holyrood, Thursday, 4 July, Statement after Questions:

  Mr Robert Fraser (First Minister): In the Scottish National Party we aim for a legal independence achieved by detailed negotiation with a friendly England. We aim to prepare our economy and our infrastructure for that negotiation and that independence, so that when it comes Scotland can not only be free but strong. We have nothing to do with violence, with kidnapping, with riots, with anti-English prejudice. That would only lead to an impoverished, despised Scotland, unable to hold up its head among the nations of Europe.

  So it follows that we cannot touch, can have no part in, the manoeuvres of the SLA and the English Tories. Theirs is not the path for us. We have made good progress on our path, and shall make more. We have no intention of throwing ourselves over a cliff. On the second reading of the government’s Bill in Westminster next week our SNP members will abstain, explaining our position as I have done today – a principled abstention for a principled independence. As a party we will not take part in the referendum on 21 September, neither in the speech-making nor in the actual vote. It is a referendum that has n
othing to do with the Scotland in which we live and for which some of us have worked all our lives.

  Lead story in the Daily Telegraph:

  Friday, 5 July

  In a last-minute shift of tactics the government yesterday postponed the second reading of its Scotland (Independent Referendum) Bill from Monday next week until Thursday. No reason was officially given but clearly the delay is intended to give maximum effect to the mass meeting to be held on Monday in Central Hall, Westminster, by supporters of the referendum and a yes vote in favour of the Union. So far the only speaker named for this meeting is the Prime Minister himself, who will also, of course, lead the second reading debate on Thursday. There is talk of surprise speakers. Certainly a big effort is being made to attract a large audience with hundreds of police drafted in to prevent any disruption by New England demonstrators. This news came as ministers digested the news that Scottish SNP leaders were advising their supporters, who had been expected to poll a massive no vote in September, to boycott the vote entirely. On the whole this was good news for the government. The Mori poll published on page 2 suggests that the pro-independence vote in all parts of the UK has begun to soften. On 1 July, of 1500 electors sampled 48% would vote no, i.e. against the Union (down 14 points on the last poll), 30% yes (up 5), with the don’t knows rising to 22% (up 9). Much will depend …’

  Chapter 9

  ‘It’s all your fault,’ said Sarah Tunstall. ‘You should never have stood down in that leadership contest. You’d still be Prime Minister now, and everything run in its proper way.’

  Roger Courtauld looked at her affectionately across the table. It had taken him longer than he had hoped to pin her down. She had just finished her constituency surgery at the West Ealing community centre. He remembered the last time he had felt a spark of affection for Sarah, that night in the Carlton Club when he had come straight back from seeing young Roger at Hillcrest and had ruined the dinner party she had organised to win support for him. She had pleaded with him to stick it out, and he had turned her down. She had been entitled to go off and join David Alcester’s Shadow Cabinet, and she was entitled to remind him now. But she could not evade the present by debating the past.