An Unexpected MP

by Jerry Hayes

  Almost as scary was when a troubled young man bit the ear off a constituent in the waiting room. I thought this was right out of order so I chased after him and had a bit of a scuffle, both of us rolling around on the market square. I soon realised that I was in trouble, as he was a very big lad. Luckily, someone came to my rescue and the police arrived.

  Years later I heard that he had been imprisoned for attempted murder. Then I had a phone call from the chief constable to say that the fellow had confessed to a probation officer that he had plans to kill me. I immediately wrote to Angela Rumbold, the Prisons Minister. A month later I received a reply. It was not very cheering. That a prison shrink had been to see him. That the fellow had decided not to kill me after all. And that he had been released two weeks earlier. Thanks a bunch, Angela.

  But the majority of the people I saw had serious problems. Three stick in my mind. One, a delightful foster parent who had looked after a young Nigerian girl since she was a toddler. When the child turned fifteen her mother flew over, kidnapped her and took her back to Nigeria. I had an adjournment debate, meetings with the Foreign Secretary, and eventually I had a meeting with the Nigerian High Commissioner. And what a disaster that was. All the secretaries were dressed in very expensive frocks and the High Commissioner was dripping in gold and a well-tailored Armani suit. Yet his office in those days was ramshackle. All he did was give me a lecture on British colonialism, then said there was a cultural problem and that he could do nothing. The complacent little shit.

  Years later I received a lovely letter from the foster mother, thanking me for all my help. Ronke had reached the age of majority and returned home.

  But the most moving story of all, which makes me well up just writing this, was a lovely couple who brought their seriously ill daughter to see me, a tiny frail child. She had been pronounced fit to fly by their GP and covered by insurance to have one last holiday with her mum, dad and brother. Sadly, the Greeks gave her the wrong drugs and she needed to be rushed home to a British hospital. The insurance company, a well-known and well-respected one, went back on their policy and refused to fly her back by air ambulance. They would only provide a seat on a charter flight for her and her father. The rest of the family was made to stay in Greece until the holiday ended. Can you imagine the flight, with the father with his dying child, administering morphine suppositories to ease her terrible pain? I am happy to say that I savaged the reputation of that ghastly company on the floor of the House and in the media. The family received compensation but a few weeks later their beloved Sally Ann died. This wonderful family queued up for three hours just to thank me. And yet what had I done? Nothing of substance. When they gave me the news I am not ashamed to say that I totally broke down. There was much crying and hugs all round.

  The other incident that moved me, in a rather different way, was when the family of a young warrant officer based in Hong Kong came to see me. He was just about to be awarded the British Empire Medal by the Governor, my old mate Chris Patten. They were the only family he had and they wanted to see their son’s moment of pride. They were the sort of people you would describe as the salt of the earth. Kind, decent, had worked hard all of their lives, but relied totally on their state pensions. They had as much chance of getting to Hong Kong as flying to the moon. So I wrote to the Secretary of State for Defence. No joy. And to Chris Patten. Nothing. Nobody would help. And then I remembered that the Swire family were a great benefactor to Old Harlow as their old family home had been converted into St Nicholas School. They own Cathay Pacific and are a thoroughly decent bunch. So I wrote to John Swire and explained the problem. Within a couple of days I received a wonderful letter from him. He was a major in the last war. Warrant officers were the backbone of the British Army. The MOD had behaved like tossers. So he flew this lovely old couple out first class and put them up in his finest hotel. What a gentleman.

  I know this book is not meant to be terribly serious, but being a Member of Parliament exposes you to the realisation that the British are a kind, generous and tolerant people. It also makes you understand that so many find themselves in dire and tragic circumstances and bear it with great courage. To try to help them is a privilege far more precious than any office of state.

  One of the things an MP has to do is keep their finger on the pulse of what is happening in the major public services. This means regular visits to hospitals, the fire service and the police. Policing in Harlow changed round about the 1990s. Before that, a couple of times a year I would have a great lunch with my divisional commander. These guys would be down-to-earth, practical and loved by their men. The meetings were incredibly valuable and I learned a lot about practical policing. Then, in the 1990s, it all changed. Rather than a few sharpeners in the office and then a cracking good lunch I was greeted by young men who were on the accelerated promotion scheme. Clever fellows, with good degrees, who had spent a few months on the beat then quickly got promoted to sergeant, then inspector, and then off to the office of the chief constable to think of wonderful wheezes to arrange his sock drawer and reorganise the paper clips. Ask for a drink and Satan had entered the room. From a few stiff whiskies and a couple of bottles of red to mineral water and sandwiches. Smooth PR guys with plastic smiles and an eye for the main chance. I was not there to be educated nor to bounce ideas off, but to assist in the next stepping stone of their ghastly careers. They didn’t want to discuss policing but policy. Ye gods.

  However, there was one little ray of sunshine. One senior officer was having an affair with one of the girls in the finance department. They used to have passionate trysts in the glades of Epping Forest – until it hit the red tops. All caught on film and sound. How could this have happened? The officer forgot that he had approved a surveillance operation of some very dodgy people … in Epping Forest. One sergeant who led the surveillance team said to me after the miscreant had retired over ill health, ‘I think the boys need counselling. It was enough to put you off tapioca and cocktail sausages for life.’

  Harlow Council was a funny old set-up. It was outrageously left-wing when I was elected. Ken Livingstone would have been regarded as a bit of a Tory. Back in the day, they used to have late-night debates over the Vietnam War.

  At first they regarded me as a terrible right-wing aberration (I think the Lady might have disagreed). My first story in the Harlow Gazette seriously upset the comrades. The mere fact that I had been mentioned almost favourably led the council to threaten their advertising revenues if I was ever mentioned again. The reporter, the lovely Ailsa Macintyre, whose fearless reporting I am indebted to, has now moved horribly down-market. She is now Ailsa Anderson, formerly the press secretary to the Queen and now press secretary to the Archbishop of Canterbury. She is very good news.

  Eventually, I rather warmed to the council. We eyed each other very suspiciously. They had never engaged with a Tory before. And then they found one who didn’t want to grind the faces of the poor into the dirt and who had a social conscience. It made them very, very confused.

  The man I had to do business with was their general manager. Many councillors couldn’t understand why he had to talk to me at all. Actually, he was a really good guy and was at pains to explain to them that although I was a wicked Tory I would be willing to try and help them. His name was Dermot Byrne and his son is the well-known Labour politician Liam. Both are good blokes.

  But I can understand why the local Labour Party viewed me with such suspicion. These people had come from the East End of London. The boss classes had ripped the heart out of them. The unions, and eventually Labour, had given them a voice and dignity. In those days the Tory politicians were a pretty grim bunch. In fact, my grandmother and most of her family were socialists. She was married to the welterweight world boxing champion, Jimmy Hicks. Sadly, he practised on her. As a working-class woman she went to the police many times to tell them about his brutality. They told her that’s what happens in marriage. It’s what a woman should expect. Bravely, she divorced him
in 1905. Strange that so many years later they both ended up with dementia in the same hospital in adjoining beds. Neither had a clue who the other was. It was desperately sad. My grandmother was a very brave woman. To keep her family of seven in food and clothes she scrubbed the floors of an orphanage. It is now the Snaresbrook Crown Court. When I appear there I feel proud that my grandmother once cleaned those floors to keep my mother alive.

  But enough of sentimentality, let’s get back to Harlow. I was amazingly lucky to have such great ground troops. Mind you, they were getting on a bit. But they were loyal and hardworking. In the run-up to the 1997 election, which I was doomed to lose, I had a phone call from the chairman of a safe seat. Would I like to stand? Of course I bloody would. But how could I look those who had worked so hard to get me elected in the eye again? For me it was a no-brainer. But the chicken run before the 1997 election, where sitting MPs jumped ship for safer berths, was a disgrace.

  I know all MPs say this, but I am so grateful for those who worked so hard for me. Most hadn’t a penny to rub together.

  During one election, I remember being chased down the road by some fellow who had my election address rolled up in his hand. He was threatening to shove it where the sun doesn’t shine. ‘Not unless I get to you first,’ said I, on my charm offensive. A bit of a bundle ensued. Then he took a good look at me. ‘’Ere, you’re that Jerry Hayes.’

  ‘Yes,’ I gasped.

  ‘Sorry, mate, got you muddled with that Labour twat. Fifty quid all right?’

  And it was. Harlow was a great place to represent.

  And so, David and Betty Roberts, my loyal chairman and friends, and my last agent, Marion Little, thank you for your love and forbearance and for realising that I can be a bit of a handful. And for not telling too many people about it.

  But how could I forget Rita Whyte? She was a great supporter who was the former deputy head of a primary school. She spent her life on the run from an abusive husband. Yet her son became an assistant chief constable and her daughter a chairman of a county council. So, when my party start having a go at single mothers I always take a deep breath and will never forget this remarkable woman. I was very proud to take her to a Buckingham Palace garden party before she died.

  But the image that will stick in my mind more than any other is when Saddam Hussein visited Harlow. Well, sort of. In the middle of the first Iraq War, Harlow Council gave me a wonderful political present. The daft lefties refused to fly the Union flag over the town hall. When our boys were putting their lives at risk? Insane. So I contacted my mates on the super soar-away Sun. I was told to meet a pleasant guy called Robert Jobson at the Harlow Moat House at 9 a.m. for breakfast the next day. So up I rolled to find the normally sleepy dining room packed. Must be some bloody convention. How was I supposed to find Robert? So I stood on a chair and asked if anyone was there from The Sun. Much hilarity. They all were.

  The Sun then invaded Harlow with two tanks, three Page Three lovelies and a Saddam Hussein lookalike. This was spread over three pages the next day, topped with a cartoon of Saddam on the balcony of Harlow Town Hall, doing a Nazi salute. Harlow Council was of course flying the Iraqi flag. Sadly, the lefties didn’t see the funny side of all this at all.

  Being an MP is round after round of opening things. And I loved it. Harlow is infested with little plaques bearing my name. If you want to have look at a rather expensive brass one, pop in to the Beefeater Inn just outside North Weald. I was told there was going to be a parachute display and then a formal opening. So I peered into the sky and noticed a few little black dots. Then parachutes opened. But as they came nearer to earth they didn’t get an awful lot bigger. And they were all very round. When they landed I realised that Beefeater had parachuted in five dwarves dressed as Mr Men Beefeaters. They formed a guard of honour for me to open the place. The things one has to do.

  Although I have always enjoyed swanning around being pleasant to people, you really need a great team to back you up.

  My wife Alison was a top secretary before I poached her, and with her deputy, Jan, they kept the whole show on the road. It meant Ali could work from home and be there for our two very small children. I had a reputation for dealing with problems quickly and efficiently, but the truth is it was really them. These sorts of partnerships are good for democracy, constituents and family life. But since the expenses scandal, employing any relative is regarded as a mortal sin. That is desperately sad.

  CHAPTER 7

  BIG BEASTS

  Looking back on my days in the Commons is like reflecting on my childhood. All the days seemed to be sunny and the characters larger than life. But I am pretty sure that they were always far more interesting than today’s lot. Many of them are pretty vanilla.

  Nick Soames is a case in point. Larger than life in every sense. I am not sure how much he weighs, but were he the Aga Khan, who balances himself against a tray of gold and diamonds every year (God knows why), he would be a very wealthy man. Being the grandson of Winston Churchill mercifully hasn’t given him airs and graces. It is also surprising that he is not some hang ’em and flog ’em man of the shires. He, like me, is very much a One Nation Tory (not in the ridiculous Miliband sense), which basically means that we are not obsessed with the certainty that the Germans will soon be jackbooting their way down the Mall and big fat sweating Belgians ordering that our railway timetables be translated into Walloon. In other words, we see the world and its problems pragmatically.

  But Nick does have his delightful moments of innocence. In the 1980s in a BBC recording studio the sound man always needed to have a ‘level’, so he would ask what we had had for breakfast and adjust the sound accordingly with our reply. One of Nick’s earliest broadcasts went like this.

  ‘For the level, Mr Soames, what did you have for breakfast, sir?’

  ‘Oh, some cold grouse and half a bottle of breakfast claret. What about you, old boy?’

  Once, he came into the Smoking Room rather ashen-faced and sank a large gin and tonic.

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve done something quite unforgivable,’ he wailed.

  He had just received a delegation of single mothers and had been rather sniffy about feckless women.

  ‘Feckless, Mr Soames? We are all Falklands widows.’ The poor fellow was utterly mortified.

  He once told me his father’s advice on marriage: ‘Get your cock in the till, son.’

  Not that either did. And, of course, no paragraph on Nick Soames could ever be complete without the words, which I am sure are apocryphal, of his first wife: ‘Having Nick make love to you is like having a wardrobe fall on top of you with the key still in.’

  But my favourite story was when, as a young man, he went up to his grandfather asking if he was the most famous man in the world.

  ‘Yes. Now sod off.’

  I know Nick can be a bit bombastic in the Toad of Toad Hall sense, but I have a soft spot for him because, beneath all the bluster, he is rather a sensitive soul.

  Unlike some others. I suspect that John Prescott has a sensitive side to him; it’s just that it is not very apparent if you are a Tory, since he thinks we really are lower than vermin. It was probably being a steward on the cruise liners and having to serve Anthony Eden and his ghastly braying entourage that gave Prescott his hatred not just for the policies but for the class. Although he did get his own back on a particularly patronising Eden by ‘accidentally’ spilling scalding-hot soup onto his crotch.

  I often attempted to be jolly with him but never succeeded in breaking through the barrier. Once, we both appeared (in different studios) on the Today programme. I was being at my most irritatingly jovial and gave Prezza a few playful metaphorical jabs. I thought nothing of it until I bumped into him in the Members’ lobby later that day. With my legendary judgement and timing I thought this was the time to complete my charm offensive. So I bounced up to him with a grin.

  ‘Hi, John, that was a bit of fun this morning, wasn’t it?’

  All I can r
emember is a jab in the solar plexus and a low primal growl. ‘You little Tory cunt.’

  And then Labour Chief Whip Derek Foster grinning from ear to ear, saying, ‘Nice fellow, isn’t he?’ I’ve been boring friends with this story for years.

  But Thumper once did come a cropper in the chamber.

  It was a dozy, balmy afternoon, with a dreary debate so dull that nature has excised it from my memory. The Labour front bench, including Prescott, was fairly comatose, while David Blunkett’s guide dog was snoozing away. I can’t remember whether it was Sadie or Offa. It was probably the one that used to let off the sort of farts that could strip wallpaper and clear whole rooms. Devastating in a TV studio, where crew staggered for the exit like soldiers in the Great War after a mustard gas attack. Anyhow, the dog had a very long lead that had entwined itself round the legs of the Labour front bench. Suddenly, a couple of well-refreshed Tory lads who had just staggered into the chamber thought it was time for a bit of sport. So they started staring into the eyes of the dog, growling and generally winding it up. In the end the poor mutt became so annoyed at having its afternoon nap disturbed that it got up and shook itself. Not good news for the Labour front bench entwined in the lead. They went down like ninepins. All very childish. But very, very funny.

  Former Belfast MP Gerry Fitt was a tremendous character and enormously brave. He had been bombed out of his Belfast home and always returned. The final straw was when he fought off gunmen on the stairs. Thatcher, to her credit, made him a life peer and he returned to London.