An Unexpected MP

by Jerry Hayes

  ‘Ah, forty. That was when I had one of my finest mistresses,’ he sighed.

  It is worth remembering that the right wing of the Conservative Party is utterly ruthless. They see compromise as weakness, a U-turn as a failure and being reasonable as a personality defect. Worse, they looked at everything through the prism of dogma which basically meant: the unions have to be smashed, healthcare should be insurance-based if we can get away with it, the unemployed should have to work for their benefits and we should have left the EU years ago. And they would be prepared to destroy anything that got in their way, including their leader and their party. Sounds awfully familiar. So Major was under no illusion about what this meeting with George was really all about. The conversation went rather like this:

  ‘Congratulations, Prime Minister, we are all behind you.’

  ‘Thank you, George.’

  ‘Obviously we want to help as much we can. But it would be much easier if you did it our way. If not, things could become difficult.’

  ‘Thank you, George, now why don’t you just fuck off.’

  This was the beginning of the poisonous, corrosive, destructive relationship with the right. But even if Major had said, ‘Sure, George, you guys just tell me what to do,’ it would have made no difference. The right take no prisoners.

  Graham Bright (now Sir Graham and police commissioner for Cambridgeshire, and a very old friend) became Major’s PPS. And a very effective one he was too. The trouble with being an affable fellow was that his enemies confused this with stupidity. The right nicknamed him Graham Dim. And he was anything but.

  But Graham has a great sense of humour. I remember when Major had to make a decision on who to vote for as chairman of the European Commission. I asked Graham who he thought it might be. He paused and grinned. ‘Well, it won’t be the big fat sweating Belgian.’ And it wasn’t.

  One of John Major’s earliest tests was in February 1991. I was in the Tea Room at lunchtime when he came and joined a crowd of us with a plate full of sliced tomatoes. We asked what had happened and he explained rather matter-of-factly that the Downing Street kitchens were out as the Provisional IRA had just bombed Downing Street and he needed his lunch. He was remarkably relaxed after what had happened. Not too many people realise how close the Prime Minister and senior members of the War Cabinet (first Gulf War) came to being murdered on that day. The IRA had launched three mortar bombs, two of which failed to detonate and one of which exploded in the Downing Street garden, causing a massive crater. If there had been a direct hit they would have all been killed. But Major had another stroke of luck. A few weeks earlier the bombproofing of the Cabinet Room windows and the French windows that lead down to the garden had been completed. If they hadn’t then I suspect that there would have been some serious injuries, if not deaths.

  The Cabinet followed the standard procedure and sheltered under the Cabinet table, which is specially reinforced. I remember speaking to John Wakeham that day, then Leader of the House, who had been horribly injured and lost his wife in the Brighton bombing. He told me how impressed he was with Major’s unflappability. While they were all crouching under the table waiting to be taken to a safer place he calmly commented that he thought that it would be a good idea to reconvene somewhere else. But what really impressed Wakeham was that Major gave strict instructions that as soon as they left the room they should telephone their wives and loved ones to tell them that they were safe before the news broke.

  But my old friend Graham Bright, the Prime Minister’s PPS, had an even narrower escape. He was sitting in his Downing Street office, which did not have bombproof windows, just bomb-resistant curtains. He came into the Tea Room covered in glass. He was very lucky to be alive, as was Murdo Maclean, the private secretary to the Chief Whip.

  In the early days of Thatcher, Graham asked me to sponsor his Video Recordings Bill. This was to get rid of the anomaly that there was a classification of sex and violence for films but absolutely none for the newly emerging video market. The idea was to protect children. This had all-party support. Unfortunately, the lead minister at the Home Office was David Mellor. To be fair, Mellor can be a nice enough guy on occasion, but the air around him used to crackle with his ambition. He promised us that in no way would this Bill be hijacked to revamp the Obscene Publications Act, which was an unworkable piece of legislation put on the statute book in 1959. That is, until the Lady brought him in for a chat. She had been got at by Mary Whitehouse, founder of the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association. Mary, a former sex education teacher, was a lovely old duck but was on a crusade to clean up what she believed to be the filth on the television and radio. There were daily nipple and buttock counts, all lovingly researched by her outraged members. At the next standing committee meeting, Mellor came armed with amendments which had Whitehouse’s fingerprints smeared all over them. This was nothing more than an attempt to harden the Obscene Publications Act, with Parliament deciding what the public was allowed to hear, view or read. There was a bit of a row. We made it clear that the Bill would fall if there were any plans to tighten the Obscene Publications Act, as any all-party support would wither on the vine. Eventually, common sense prevailed and Bright, with me as his whip, pushed it through the Commons. David, to his credit, stood up to the Lady.

  It is worth remembering that the Obscene Publications Act is rarely used nowadays. The offence was possessing material that tended to ‘deprave and corrupt’, which is very much in the eye of the beholder. In those days, selling magazines depicting basic sex or an erect penis could attract a prison sentence. But the moral right wanted to make the sentences even stiffer. If you know what I mean.

  But the Video Recordings Bill was not without its bizarre moments. Sitting in the ministers’ room in the Home Office watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and such cinematic triumphs as I Spit on Your Grave, where a woman graphically cuts off the penises of all those who have raped her, bordered on the bizarre. One day, Graham told me that he had been doing some research on telephone porn lines. He was so animated about regaling us with what he had heard that he spent most of the time wheezing into his inhaler. I suspect that it was all pretty tame by today’s standards. But I feared for dear old Graham’s health when he was on the line to some potty-mouthed granny doing her ironing while pretending to be an orgasmic Swedish nurse.

  After winning the 1992 election, everyone expected backbenchers to be a happy, united little family. In their dreams. After reeling from the shock waves of Black Wednesday we had to endure the horrors of the Maastricht wars, with the right wallowing in ripping the party apart. Despite the fact that Major had won serious concessions from Brussels, keeping us out of the euro and the Social Chapter, nothing would ever be enough for them except a referendum, a no vote and a withdrawal. Preferably yesterday.

  It was open civil war. The depressing thing was that these guys were so obsessed with the purity of their arguments they genuinely didn’t care if the Tories lost the election and let in a pro-Brussels Labour. Many were muttering that it would have been be better had we lost the 1992 election. And some genuinely believed that it would be in the party’s interests to lose the 1997 election, as we could regroup with a Thatcherite leader and come out invigorated and refreshed. By this time, the argument went, voters would have sussed that Blair was a red-in-tooth-and-claw socialist and kicked him out. It goes without saying that this sort of Euro Wahhabism was aggressively promoted by those who had rock-solid majorities. Whoever won the next election would not affect them one jot. No wonder, Major confided to Mike Brunson, that they were bastards. Well, it was meant to be confidential except nobody had thought to tell him that his microphone was still live.

  It is not easy to describe how poisonous the atmosphere was. There was almost a rerun in early 2013 when Euroloonery and Cameron vilification nearly ripped the party apart again. Post-1992, the usual suspects were in full throttle. Bill Cash, Teresa Gorman and John Redwood seemed never to be off the news, while, in the ba
ckground, Michael Portillo was secretly preparing to ascend into prime ministerial heaven. Things were coming to a head.

  One day I received a call from Graham asking me to join a few decent sorts for lunch at No. 10. These were always convivial affairs and while we were waiting for John we downed a few industrial-sized gin and tonics. This was at a time when Spitting Image was at the height of its popularity and the sketch of the PM being obsessed with eating peas off the end of a knife was very well known. Eventually he arrived, had a couple of gins and sat down for lunch. There on the table was an enormous tureen of peas.

  ‘Oh God, not peas again,’ he moaned. ‘Don’t they realise it’s a joke? I can’t stand the bloody things.’

  At the end there was just John, Graham and me. We were despairing at the way the right was behaving. I cut to the chase.

  ‘If you don’t fuck them, they will certainly fuck you.’ A few weeks later he issued his put-up-or-shut-up challenge and in October 1995 John Redwood resigned from the Cabinet and threw his hat into the ring for the leadership. In turn Major resigned as party leader but remained as Prime Minister. It was a remarkably brave thing to do and one hell of a gamble. The battle for the leadership had begun. And in the space of just a few years the Conservative Party indulged itself in a destructive civil war. What was a little surprising was that Redwood and the rest of the Cabinet had undertaken not to stand. Most of us expected that the challenger would be Norman Lamont.

  Norman Tebbit and Norman Lamont were the heavyweight Redwood supporters. The trouble with Redwood is that he is great company, highly intelligent and very pleasant, but on camera he looks completed deranged. He has the knack of making some of the most sensible proposals sound completely bonkers. It didn’t help that in his campaign launch he was surrounded by Teresa Gorman, Richard Body, Bill Cash and Tony Marlow (nicknamed Von Marloff) – not the sort of people you would necessarily choose to stand next to when there is a full moon. Dear old Richard Body once prompted Major to comment, ‘Why is it whenever I hear the name Body I always think of flapping white coats?’ And in India, Gorman would be considered sacred. They all looked madder than a box of frogs. Gorman’s was the first call I received after losing my seat in 1997.

  ‘Jerry, my supporters are very upset that my majority has been significantly reduced. They think it may have something to do with you blaming me for our defeat.’

  Considering that this ghastly woman spent most of the time undermining the Prime Minister and destroying any chance of a Conservative victory, I gave her short shrift. I suggested that she fuck off, and never spoke to her again.

  It is strange how a hard core of Tory backbenchers regularly conspire against their leadership. Heath, Thatcher, Major, Duncan Smith and now Cameron. The trick is to try and keep as many on side as possible. It is easier to herd cats. The worry in 1995 was not that Major would lose the leadership but what the numbers would be. There was considerable speculation that real challenges would come if Major failed to get the 50 per cent of the vote or, like Thatcher, was holed below the waterline. And in the true Tory tradition of ‘never kick a man unless he is down and there are at least five of you’, Michael Portillo was on manoeuvres, installing a bank of telephones at a secret campaign headquarters. Just in case. Except that nothing in Westminster is secret for very long. He, of course, professed nothing but utter loyalty to Major. But it was the end of his career. Nobody trusts underhand behaviour if it is coupled with a lack of courage. It was a shame because deep down he is quite a decent soul. But it is very deep down. I just wish he had told us before he lost his seat in 1997 that he was a compassionate Tory.

  A few days after the telephone business I was particularly exercised about Portillo’s disloyalty. I was chatting to a chum near the Members’ taxi rank and exclaimed my frustration with a shout of ‘Portillo. What a total cunt.’ It was then that I noticed the diminutive shape of the delightful Ann Widdecombe. I was mortified that I had used the C word in her presence and profusely apologised.

  ‘There is absolutely no need to,’ she smiled. ‘The only word that I objected to was “Portillo”.’

  I am very fond of Ann. Feisty, opinionated and a heart of gold. Although we don’t always agree.

  Well, Major received 218 votes with Redwood at 89, 12 abstentions and 8 spoilt papers. I was appointed as one of the scrutineers. It was all rather peculiar. I would be sitting in Committee Room 14 and ballot papers were handed out. Loyalists would flourish them while those who were going to vote for Redwood would scamper into the shadows. Needless to say the names were all noted. We all hoped that this would be the end of the matter and that the troops would realise how close they had come to destroying the party and behave.

  Wrong. The right seemed to get another wind. And after Black Wednesday the press was gunning for us. The Mail and The Sun had been charmed by Blair and Mandelson and were moving over to New Labour.

  I remember when Blair stood for the leadership. I bumped into him with a member of my constituency executive. After a brief hello from Tony, my supporter wished him well, ‘but I hope you don’t win the leadership because you will win the election’. A year later I bumped into him in a corridor. ‘Why don’t you join me in New Labour?’

  ‘Tony, I’d love to but you’re a bit too right-wing for me.’

  He grinned.

  But everyone was out to get us now. At one time, Major came down to Harlow and asked me to mind the local press. I remember one interview with ITV’s Tim Ewart, who behaved with aloof condescension, bordering on the downright rude. It was a very unpleasant interview. John appeared charming and affable, but inside he was fuming.

  ‘How can he talk to the Prime Minister like that?’ he said after Ewart, now the royal correspondent for ITV, had departed in a cloud of televisual glory. If he was made of chocolate that man would eat himself.

  It is a horrendous job being Prime Minister even at the best of times. When your party is ripping itself apart and the press has turned against you, it must be the worst job in the world. I suspect that he hated it. And yet he transformed the economy and, because of his special relationship with Albert Reynolds, he started the peace process in Northern Ireland with the Downing Street Declaration, which culminated in a ceasefire, setting us on the road to peace.

  I was particularly fond of Major’s brother Terry. We met at events and various TV programmes. A very kind and decent man with a great sense of humour. But he had hardly any money. Not that he cared. One day I asked John why he didn’t sort out a job for him. He looked at me with incredulity.

  ‘You really don’t understand our family. Terry would be mortified. When I needed a room to study for my A levels he left home to live in a flat so I could have his room. Except he wasn’t in a flat; he was living in a lock-up garage.’

  The press was wicked towards Major. Kelvin MacKenzie, the Sun editor, was really beyond appalling, ringing him up and, when asked how the next day’s front page would be treating the government, replying, ‘Prime Minister, on my desk I have a large bucket of shit and tomorrow I’m going to pour it all over you.’ Simon Heffer (then of the Telegraph) and Peter Hitchens (Mail on Sunday) were particularly vicious. That always caused me a problem, as personally I like them both. Aha, you might say, how can you like these guys when they are slagging off your party and your friends? Easy. You can like someone socially but professionally you could quite cheerfully murder them. And sometimes I could, particularly over the appalling rubbish they write about Cameron, whom I like and admire.

  The worst thing in politics is to bear grudges. This helped me tremendously when I became a journalist.

  On one rare occasion I actually found a Hitchens column that I quite liked, which must be a collector’s item, I told him. Peter was horrified.

  ‘People like you are not meant to like my column,’ he sighed.

  At one occasion I bumped into John at one of Jeffrey Archer’s sparkling summer parties. We spied Heffer in the distance.

  ‘Shall I hol
d him down and you kick him in the balls or would you prefer it the other way round?’ I suggested. He just smiled enigmatically.

  Apart from the normal cut-and-thrust of politics there were some very exciting moments which I will never forget. For a few years I had been a PPS in the Northern Ireland Office and knew the territory well. One late night I received a call from No. 10 saying that the PM wanted to see me in his office behind the Speaker’s chair. A crowd of Northern Ireland hands were seated around the table. Major was ashen with anger. He wanted to brief us about the front page of the next day’s Times, where Matthew d’Ancona had obtained what he thought were the government plans for the Unionists in the peace process. Actually, it was a very early draft which had been rejected. But it was very, very inflammatory. I remember Major banging his fist on the desk. He felt that this could derail months of hard work. He wanted us to blitz the media to say that this document did not represent government policy. Robert Cranborne, leader of the Lords and staunch Unionist, was in the room. There was an uneasy feeling that he might have had something to do with the article. Major turned to him: ‘Robert, are you content?’

  ‘Prime Minister, I am content.’ From that moment we knew that Robert was on side and that he had had absolutely nothing to do with the story. Robert may have been sacked later by William Hague after he put together a lifeboat under the radar to save ninety-two hereditary peers from Labour’s reforms, but I have always found him to be utterly trustworthy and loyal. In the Lords he was revered.

  On the way out I bumped into shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam. We had been friends for years so I told her what was going on.

  ‘Ah, well,’ she said, sensing a great bi-party media opportunity. ‘I had better do my hair, then.’ And off she flounced. What a great lady with a tremendous sense of fun and mischief.