Another bluff, thought Andrew. He flicked back the cover. It was true: exactly as he had suspected, Ricky Hodge had never been arrested or charged. He turned the page. “Rome, child prostitution; Marseilles, narcotics; Paris, blackmail.” Page after page, ending in Turkey, where Hodge had been found in possession of four pounds of heroin which he had been selling in small packets on the black market. In his twenty-nine years Ricky Hodge had spent eleven of the last fourteen in foreign jails.
Andrew closed the file and could feel the sweat on his forehead. It was some moments before he spoke. “I apologize, Foreign Secretary,” he said. “I have made a fool of myself.”
“When I was a young man,” said Sir Alec, “I made a similar mistake on behalf of a constituent. Ernie Bevin was Foreign Secretary at the time. He could have crucified me in the House with the knowledge he had. Instead he revealed everything over a drink in this room. I sometimes wish the public could see members in their quiet moments as well as in their rowdy ones.”
Andrew thanked Sir Alec and walked thoughtfully back to the House. The Evening Standard poster outside the Commons caught his eye. “O’Halloran arrested again.” He bought a copy, stood by the railings, and began reading. Paddy O’Halloran had been detained in a Glasgow police station and charged with robbing the Bank of Scotland in Sauchichall Street. Andrew wondered if his friends would allege it was another “frame up” by the police until he read the next paragraph. “O’Halloran was arrested leaving the bank in possession of a shotgun and £25,000 in used notes. He said when apprehended by the police, ‘I’ve just been clearing my account.’”
At home, Louise told him that Ricky Hodge had done him a favor.
“How’s that possible?” asked Andrew.
“You won’t take yourself so seriously in future.” She smiled.
When Andrew conducted his next surgery in Edinburgh two weeks later he was surprised to see that Mrs. Bloxham had made an appointment.
As he greeted her at the door he was even more surprised. She was wearing a bright crimplene dress and a new pair of squeaky brown leather shoes. She also looked as if “Our Blessed Lady” might have to wait a few more years to receive her after all. Andrew motioned her to a seat.
“I came to thank you, Mr. Fraser,” she said, once she was settled.
“What for?” asked Andrew.
“For sending that nice young man round from Christie’s. They auctioned great-grandma’s table for me. I couldn’t believe my luck—it fetched £1,400.” Andrew smiled. “So it don’t matter about the stain on the dress any more.” She paused. “It even made up for having to eat off the floor for three months.”
Simon steered the new Boundary Commission recommendations unspectacularly through the House as an order in Council, and suddenly he had lost his own constituency. His colleagues in Coventry were understanding, and nursed those wards that would become theirs at the next election in order that he might spend more time searching for a new seat.
Seven seats became available during the year but Simon was only interviewed for two of them. Both were almost on the Scottish border and both put him in second place. He began to appreciate what it must feel like for an Olympic favorite to be awarded the silver medal.
Ronnie Nethercote’s monthly board reports began to paint an increasingly somber picture, thus reflecting in real life what the politicians were decreeing in Parliament. Ronnie had decided to postpone going public until the climate was more advantageous. Simon couldn’t disagree with the judgment, but when he checked his special overdraft facility the interest on his loans had pushed the figure in red to over £90,000.
When unemployment first passed the million mark and Ted Heath ordered a pay and prices freeze strikes broke out all over the country.
The new parliamentary session in the autumn was dominated by the issue of a Prices and Incomes policy. Charles Seymour became involved in putting the case for the Government. While he didn’t always win every argument, he was now so well briefed on his subject that he no longer feared making a fool of himself at the dispatch box. Raymond Gould and Andrew Fraser both made passionate speeches on behalf of the unions, but the Conservative majority beat them again and again.
However, the Prime Minister was moving inexorably toward a head-on clash with the unions and an early general election.
When all three party conferences were over members returned to the Commons aware that it was likely to be their last session before the general election. It was openly being said in the corridors that all the Prime Minister was waiting for was a catalyst. The miners provided it. In the middle of a bleak winter they called an all-out strike for more pay in defiance of the Government’s new trade union legislation.
In a television interview the Prime Minister told the nation that with unemployment at an unprecedented 2,294,448 and the country on a three-day week he had to call an election to ensure that the rule of law be maintained. The inner Cabinet advised Heath to plump for 28 February 1974.
“Who runs the country?” became the Tory theme but seemed only to emphasize class differences, rather than uniting the country as Edward Heath had hoped.
Andrew Fraser had his doubts but he faced a different threat in his own constituency, where the Scottish Nationalists were using the quarrel between the two major parties to promote their own cause. He returned to Scotland, to be warned by his father that the Scottish Nationalists were no longer a joke and that he would be facing a hard campaign against the robust local candidate, Jock McPherson.
Raymond Gould traveled back to Leeds, confident that the northeast industrial area would not tolerate Heath’s high-handedness.
Charles felt sure that the people would back any party which had shown the courage to stand up to the unions, although the left wing, led vociferously by Tom Carson, made a great play of the “two nations” issue, insisting that the Government were out to crush the Labour movement once and for all.
Charles drove down to Sussex to find his supporters glad of the chance to put those “lazy trade unionists” in their place.
Simon, with no seat to fight, worked on in the Home Office right up to the day of the election, convinced that his career was facing only a temporary setback.
“I’ll fight the first by-election that comes up,” he promised Elizabeth.
“Even if it’s a mining seat in South Wales,?” she replied.
Many months had passed before Charles had found it possible even to sustain a conversation with Fiona for any length of time. Neither wanted a divorce, both citing the ailing Earl of Bridgwater as their reason, although inconvenience and loss of face were nearer the truth. In public it would have been hard to detect the change in their relationship since they had never been given to overt affection.
Charles gradually became aware that it was possible for marriages to have been over for years without outsiders knowing it. Certainly the old earl never found out, because even on his deathbed he told Fiona to hurry up and produce an heir.
“Do you think you’ll ever forgive me?” Fiona once asked her husband.
“Never,” he replied, with a finality that encouraged no further discourse.
During the three-week election campaign in Sussex they both went about their duties with a professionalism that masked their true feelings.
“How is your husband bearing up?” someone would inquire.
“Much enjoying the campaign and looking forward to returning to Government,” was Fiona’s stock reply.
“And how is dear Lady Fiona?” Charles was continuously asked.
“Never better than when she’s helping in the constituency,” was his.
On Sundays, at one church after another, he read the lesson with confidence while she sang “Fight the good fight” in a clear contralto.
The demands of a rural constituency are considerably different from those of a city. Every village, however small, expects the member to visit them and to recall the local chairmen’s names. Subtle changes were taking place: Fi
ona no longer whispered the names in Charles’s ear. Charles no longer turned to her for advice.
During the campaign Charles would ring the photographer on the local paper to discover which events his editor had instructed him to cover that day. With the list of places and times in his hand Charles would arrive on each occasion a few minutes before the photographer. The Labour candidate complained officially to the local editor that Mr. Seymour’s photograph was never out of the paper.
“If you were present at these functions we would be only too happy to publish your photo,” said the editor.
“But they never invite me,” cried the Labour candidate.
They don’t invite Seymour either, the editor wanted to say, but he somehow manages to be there. It was never far from the editor’s mind that his proprietor was a Tory peer so he kept his mouth shut.
All the way up to election day Charles and Fiona opened bazaars, attended dinners, drew raffles, and only just stopped short of kissing babies.
Once, when Fiona asked him, Charles admitted that he hoped to be moved to the Foreign Office as a Minister of State, and perhaps to be made a Privy Councillor.
On the last day of February they dressed in silence and went off to their local polling station to vote. The photographer was there on the steps to take their picture. They stood closer together than they had for some weeks, looking like a smart register office couple. Charles knew it would be the main photograph on the front page of the Sussex Gazette the following day, as surely as he knew the Labour candidate would be relegated to a half-column mention on the inside page not far from the obituaries.
The count in a rural seat is always taken the following morning at a more leisurely pace than is customary for its city cousins. So Charles anticipated that by the time he arrived in the town hall the Conservative majority in the House would already be assured. But it was not to be, and the result still hung in the balance that Friday morning.
Edward Heath did not concede when the newscasters predicted he would fail to be given the overall majority he required. Charles spent the day striding around the town hall with an anxious look on his face. The little piles of votes soon became larger and it was obvious that he would hold the seat with at least his usual 21,000—or was it 22,000?—majority. He never could remember the exact figure. But as the day progressed it became more and more difficult to assess the national verdict.
The last result came in from Northern Ireland a little after four o’clock that afternoon and a BBC commentator announced—
Labour 301
Conservative 296
Liberal 14
Ulster Unionists 11
Scottish Nationalists 7
Welsh Nationalists 2
Others 4
Ted Heath invited the Liberal leader to join him at Downing Street for talks in the hope that they could form a coalition. The Liberals demanded a firm commitment to electoral reform and, in particular, to proportional representation by the next election. Heath knew he could never get his back-benchers to deliver. On the Monday morning he told the Queen in her drawing room at Buckingham Palace that he was unable to form a Government. She called for Harold Wilson. He accepted her commission and drove back to Downing Street to enter the front door. Heath left by the back.
By the Tuesday afternoon every member, having watched the drama unfold, had returned to London. Raymond had increased his majority and now hoped that the Prime Minister had long since forgotten his resignation and would offer him a job.
Andrew had had the hard and unpleasant fight with Jock McPherson, just as his father had predicted, and held on to his seat by only 2,229.
Charles, still unsure of the exact majority by which he had won, drove back to London, resigned to Opposition. The one compensation was that he would be reinstated on the board of Seymour’s where the knowledge he had gained as a minister of Trade and Industry could only be of value.
Simon left the Home Office on 1 March 1974 with little more than an empty red box to show for nine years as a parliamentarian.
BOOK THREE
1974-1977 MINISTERS OF STATE
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“HIS DIARY LOOKS rather full at the moment, Mr. Charles.”
“Well, as soon as it’s convenient,” Charles replied over the phone. He held on as he heard the pages being turned.
“12 March at ten-thirty, Mr. Charles?”
“But that’s nearly a fortnight away,” he said, irritated.
“Mr. Spencer has only just returned from the States and—”
“How about a lunch, then—at my club?” Charles interrupted.
“That couldn’t be until after 19 March.”
“Very well, then,” said Charles. “12 March, at ten-thirty.”
During the fourteen-day wait Charles had ample time to become frustrated by his seemingly aimless role in Opposition. No car came to pick him up and whisk him away to an office where real work had to be done. Worse, no one sought his opinion any longer on matters that affected the nation. He was going through a sharp bout of what is known as “ex-ministers’ blues.”
He was relieved when the day for the appointment with Derek Spencer at last came round. But although he arrived on time he was kept waiting for ten minutes before the chairman’s secretary took him through.
“Good to see you after so long,” said Spencer, coming round his desk to greet him. “It must be nearly six years since you’ve visited the bank.”
“Yes, I suppose it is,” said Charles. “But looking around the old place it feels like yesterday. You’ve been fully occupied, no doubt?”
“Like a Cabinet minister, but I hope with better results.”
They both laughed.
“Of course I’ve kept in touch with what’s been happening at the bank.”
“Have you?” said Spencer.
“Yes, I’ve read all the reports you’ve sent out over the past years, not to mention the Financial Times’s coverage.”
“I hope you feel we’ve progressed satisfactorily in your absence.”
“Oh. Yes,” said Charles, still standing. “Very impressive.”
“Well, now what can I do for you?” asked the chairman, returning to his seat.
“Simple enough,” said Charles, finally taking an unoffered chair. “I wish to be reinstated on the board.”
There was a long silence.
“Well, it’s not quite that easy, Charles. I’ve just recently appointed two new directors and …”
“Of course it’s that easy,” said Charles, his tone changing. “You have only to propose my name at the next meeting and it will go through, especially as you haven’t a member of the family on the board at the present time.”
“We have, as a matter of fact. Your brother the Earl of Bridgwater has become a non-executive director.”
“What? Rupert never told me,” said Charles. “Neither did you.”
“True, but things have changed since—”
“Nothing has changed except my estimation of the value of your word,” said Charles, suddenly realizing that Spencer had never intended he should return to the board. “You gave me your assurance—”
“I won’t be spoken to like this in my own office.”
“If you’re not careful, the next place I shall do it will be in your boardroom. Now, will you honor your undertaking or not?”
“I don’t have to listen to threats from you, Seymour. Get out of my office before I have you removed. I can assure you that you will never sit on the board again as long as I’m chairman.”
Charles turned and marched out, slamming the door as he left. He wasn’t sure with whom to discuss the problem and returned immediately to Eaton Square to consider a plan of campaign.
“What brings you home in the middle of the afternoon?” asked Fiona.
Charles hesitated, considered the question, and then joined his wife in the kitchen and told her everything that had happened at the bank. Fiona continued to grate some cheese as she list
ened to her husband.
“Well, one thing is certain,” she said, not having spoken for several minutes but delighted that Charles had confided in her. “After that fracas, you can’t both be on the board.”
“So what do you think I ought to do, old girl?”
Fiona smiled; it was the first time he had called her that for nearly two years. “Every man has his secrets,” she said. “I wonder what Mr. Spencer’s are?”
“He’s such a dull middle-class fellow I doubt if—”
“I’ve just had a letter from Seymour’s Bank,” interrupted Fiona.
“What about?”
“Only a shareholder’s circular. It seems Margaret Trubshaw is retiring after twelve years as the board secretary. Rumor has it she wanted to do five more years, but the chairman has someone else in mind. I think I might have lunch with her.”
Charles returned his wife’s smile.
Andrew’s appointment as Minister of State at the Home Office came as no surprise to anyone except his three-year-old son, who quickly discovered how to empty any red boxes that were left unlocked, refilling them with marbles or sweets, and even managing to fit a football into one. As Robert didn’t fully understand “For Your Eyes Only,” it didn’t seem to make a lot of difference that Cabinet committee papers were sometimes found glued together with old bubble gum.
“Can you remove that latest stain in the red box?”
“Good heavens, what caused it?” asked Louise, staring down at a jelly-like blob.
“Frog spawn,” said Andrew, grinning.
“He’s a brainwashed Russian spy,” warned Louise, “with a mental age about the same as most of your colleagues in the House. Yes, I’ll remove the stain if you sit down and write that letter.”
Andrew nodded his agreement.
Among the many letters of commiseration Simon received when he did not return to the House was one from Andrew Fraser. Simon could imagine him sitting in his old office and implementing the decisions he had been involved in making just a few weeks before.
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