Breaking the Code

by Gyles Brandreth

  At 2.20 p.m., I’m in the Library, pondering the suicide rates, when Bob Hughes scurries up: ‘You’re on!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You must reply to Antony’s bill—’

  ‘But I don’t want to.’

  ‘You must, but don’t force a division.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Make your speech, but don’t call for a vote.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we’ve heard Jeremy Corbyn405 wants to speak. Because if you put in first, you’ll be called instead of him. If he speaks he’ll go on for ten minutes and then we’ll have a division and we’ll lose half an hour. If you just do two or three minutes, he can’t be called and we can make progress. It’s a double bonus: thwart Corbyn and save time. Okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ I said with a heavy heart.

  The inevitable happened. Steen (who is gloriously eccentric) made a very funny speech – it was a little work of art. I got up and gabbled lamely (hating what I was doing, knowing I was offering dross after gold), and sat down. The question was put. Steen shouted Aye. I kept stumm, as instructed. From the opposition benches Corbyn and co. chorused ‘No, no, no!’ and the House divided. Another whip scam down the pan and I ended up with a rich helping of omelette sur le visage. Of course, it doesn’t matter at all. It’s all a lot of nonsense. But, all the same, how I hate it.

  FRIDAY 8 JULY 1994

  ‘The millionaire novelist and Conservative peer Jeffrey Archer is at the centre of an official investigation into alleged insider share dealings in Anglia Television, of which his wife is a non-executive director.’ O Jeffrey! Jeffrey! Jeffrey! ‘Insider dealing is a criminal offence which, if proven, carries a maximum prison sentence of seven years.’ Apparently, the DTI investigation was launched in February, so how come it leaks six months later and in the run-up to the reshuffle? Can this be Heseltine’s doing? No. He may not have much time for Jeffrey, he may not want to see him as party chairman, but Hezza doesn’t make mistakes, doesn’t break the rules. This’ll be the work of an official with an understandable grudge against multi-millionaire Conservative peers with fragrant wives.

  SUNDAY 10 JULY 1994

  This is bad. The Sunday Times (bastards) and their ‘Insight Team’ (sanctimonious bastards) have successfully hanged, drawn and quartered Riddick and Tredinnick406 – naive fools. Tredinnick I hardly know – he seems a bit friendless, wanders the corridors looking rather wan and lost. Riddick is a friend – and a good man in his funny right-wing way – with a sweet wife and courage and ambition – one of the best of the A team – and before the end of the month he would have been in the government, without doubt. And now this. I have tried calling him, but the line’s constantly engaged. Natch.

  The essence of it is this: an Insight journalist, masquerading as a businessman of some kind, contacted twenty MPs – ten of ours, ten Labour – and asked them to put down a parliamentary question on his behalf, offering them each a payment of £1,000 for their pains. Almost all who were approached gave variations of the response you’d expect: ‘No thank you – I can’t help – contact your own MP – this doesn’t need a parliamentary question, get your MP simply to write to the relevant ministry etc.’ Bill Walker said ‘give the money to charity’, John Gorst declined payment but was content to discuss a future ‘arrangement’. Only two of the twenty – it had to be our two, of course – rose to the bait. ‘£1,000? That’ll do nicely.’

  It’s entrapment posing as ‘ruthless investigative journalism’; it’s unfair; it’s outrageous; but what does the Sunday Times care? It’s a great story for them and another nightmare for us.

  MONDAY 11 JULY 1994

  Graham [Riddick] is here, facing the music. He’s a funny-looking creature at the best of times, a touch of the Munsters with a gangly, loping walk. But funny-looking, baggy-eyed, washed-out, he’s doing absolutely the right thing: being seen, apologising to everyone he meets but, at the same time, fighting his corner. Yes, he’d tabled the question – about a company called Githins Business Resources (Githins being an anagram of Insight, ho ho) – he’d received the cheque – but then he’d had immediate misgivings and, before he had any idea he was the victim of a set-up, by return post he sent back the cheque.

  Tredinnick I’ve not seen. Yesterday, apparently he denied it all, said he’d refused to accept any money. Today, alas, the Sunday Times have released the tape of the telephone call in which we can all hear him asking for the cheque to be sent to his home. (The man really must be a fool: once he’d discovered he’d been set up he could have guessed that the call had been taped.)

  In the Tea Room there’s some sympathy for Graham (‘There but for the grace of God etc.’) and lots of righteous indignation at the Sunday Times. There’s also a feeling of ‘how much more of this can we take?’

  There was a barrage of points of order for the Speaker. Bill Walker (highland terrier on high horse) indignantly asking the Speaker what she intends to do about the ‘confidence trickster’, the ‘agent provocateur’ from the Sunday Times. Dale Campbell-Savours407 (arthritic bloodhound) telling us that, since 1695, it’s been ‘a high crime and misdemeanour’ to offer money to any Member of Parliament ‘for promoting any matter whatsoever’ in Parliament. It seems she’s going to make a statement and we’ll have no alternative but to concede a debate.

  So yet again the PM’s ‘fight-back’ is thrown off course. He came to give us his report on the economic summit in Naples – but was anybody listening? Of course, not. Forget international diplomacy, forget high politics. On radio, TV, in tomorrow’s papers, the headlines will all be the same: it’s cash for questions.

  WEDNESDAY 13 JULY 1994

  Trollope says somewhere that there’s nothing pleases the House of Commons so much ‘as a graceful apology sincerely meant’. I’ve just come from the Chamber. Graham pitched it exactly right: a fulsome apology to one and all – to colleagues, to friends, to the PM, ‘but most of all, I wish to apologise to you, Madam Speaker, for undermining – to whatever degree – the standing of the House.’ He did well. From, Tredinnick: silence. A terrible mistake.

  Patrick Nicholls408 made a good point. The Insight team claim to have started their entrapment procedure because a genuine businessman told them he was in the habit of giving MPs money to table questions. Where is he?

  Tony Benn gave us one of his engaging history lessons, took us right back to 1066, to Runnymede, to Magna Carta, to the Chartists, to Jim Callaghan, but made the perfectly valid point that ministers undertake not to accept gifts, hospitality, services etc. that might, or might appear, to place them under an obligation – why not MPs?

  The tragedy of all this is that out there in voter-land people will now be thinking that MPs do accept money for performing their everyday duties. The truth is they don’t. I don’t believe any Member of Parliament has accepted cash for asking a question. And I doubt that anybody would be daft enough to offer it. If you have a question that needs a ministerial answer, write to your MP, he’ll forward your letter to the ministry and a reply will be yours – gratis.

  LATER

  I have just come from Nick Scott’s room on the lower ministerial corridor. He had eight of us in to ‘clear the air’ on the Disability Bill. Another fine mess. At one extreme you have Alan ‘Mr Piety’ Howarth and friends, who would like to see proper disability discrimination legislation with an agreed timetable for implementation and, if necessary, funding to follow. At the other extreme you have the likes of Jim Cooper,409 truly disabled, who think it’s a lot of PC nonsense, more red tape, more uncalled-for costs for small businesses etc. In the middle, sits (or, more accurately, shambles) Nick – pulled one way by the ferocious disability lobby (not a pretty crowd), pulled the other by the Treasury, the planning people, the instinctive deregulators. The handling of it has been horrendous, but it’s not entirely his fault. The government, as a government, should have thought it through. Anyway, we’re going for a compromise that’ll end up pleasing nobody: a Bill of sort
s so we can say we’re doing something, but sufficiently toothless that in fact we’re doing nothing. Nick – grey-faced and weary, puffy bags under watery eyes – knows all this; knows too, I imagine, that this time next week he’ll be out of a job.

  THURSDAY 14 JULY 1994

  I’m just in from the Blue Ball. Another night, another auction – and, yes, I managed to get through it without saying, ‘And what am I bid for a parliamentary question? Any advance on £1,000?’ I did my stuff. It was fine. The PM did his stuff (including a paragraph or two of mine) and it was fine too – but much too long, as always. He feels he’s got to cover the ground, say everything, when what the punters really want is ten minutes not half an hour: a couple of jokes, keep it personal, then a single, simple moving message – and sit down. Instead of speechifying for the next twenty minutes use that time to work the room, tour the tables – that’s what they’ll remember: touch their hands and you touch their hearts.

  I sat with Norman Fowler and Angela Rumbold410 and it was very jolly. Norman is demob happy, but declined to be drawn on who he thinks his successor [as party chairman] should be. Angela and I were less reticent. I volunteered my idea that there are two jobs to be done: 1) coordinating the government line and handling the press – give that to David Hunt – and 2) chairman of the party, rallying the troops, gladhanding the faithful – give that to Jeremy Hanley. Norman looked dubious. Angela squealed with delight: ‘Oh, yes, yes, yes, let’s have Jeremy!’

  The PM came up to our end of the table, very relaxed, very amiable: ‘What are you three gossiping about?’

  ‘We’re discussing who should replace Norman as party chairman.’

  ‘He’s irreplaceable.’ The PM gave Norman his customary squeeze.

  ‘Exactly!’ shrieked Angela, nostrils flaring. ‘We think we’ve got the answer.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ said the PM.

  ‘Yes. You tell him, Gyles.’

  I ran through my spiel and, as I spoke, I watched the PM’s grin broaden. ‘Well, well, well,’ he said. He looked positively impish.

  Jeremy’s got the job. That’s certain.

  FRIDAY 15 JULY 1994

  The House is deserted. It is a very quiet Friday, just as I like it. Mid-morning, walking from Members’ Lobby to Central Lobby, who should I bump into but Jeremy Hanley? We exchanged a cheery ‘Hi’, I was going to let him pass, and then I couldn’t resist it. ‘You’re going to be the next chairman of the Conservative Party.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I know it. I was with the PM last night. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘No. No.’

  ‘Yes, yes. It’s in the bag.’

  ‘I don’t think I can do it. It’s not for me. Really. I don’t think I’m right.’

  ‘You are. You’ll be brilliant. I must go.’

  I left him looking truly perturbed.

  In the Chamber we had the third reading of my Marriage Bill. For some reason – the late night, no lunch, the excitement of getting a piece of legislation onto the statute book – I felt absurdly light-headed. I trundled happily through my speech, took a range of interventions, and got to a bit where I was trying to explain why a civil wedding could possibly take place on a moored ship at a fixed site like the Thames embankment but not on a free-floating vessel, when I caught sight of Anthony Coombs411 laughing – and he set me off on a fit of the giggles. I tried to pull myself together, I tried to carry on, but every time I began a sentence I burst out laughing. I was in paroxysms, guffawing, giggling, thinking through my tears, ‘What is this madness? I can’t go on.’ Mercifully, Tony Banks came to my aid: ‘I intervene to assist the honourable gentleman while he convulses.’ He blathered for a minute or so while I recovered my composure, and though there was an inane grin on my face for the rest of the debate and hysteria was only ever a bat’s squeak away, I got through it. It was a strange, heady experience, but not unpleasant.

  LATER

  I talked to Jeremy on the phone. I apologised for disconcerting him, told him that I might have got it wrong, but that I didn’t think so.

  ‘I’m not sure that I’m right for it,’ he persisted.

  ‘You are. You’re ideal. And at least now you can think what to say when you’re asked. Make sure you get a seat in the Cabinet. Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  WEDNESDAY 20 JULY 1994

  Reshuffle Day. This is a day that makes a handful of people very happy and leaves several hundred others thoroughly fed up.

  I didn’t really expect anything (thanks to others I’ve had too much of the wrong kind of publicity and that’s not what the government needs now, I know) but I hoped, I hoped.

  At 10.30 I walked over to the Treasury. Stephen was in his room, alone, scrubbed, boyish, eager, pretending to read some document on the private finance initiative. He’d been ‘summoned’ for around 11.15. He looked up, ‘What’s the news?’

  ‘Jeremy Hanley as party chairman,’ I said.

  ‘That’s terrible. I like him and all that, but really…’

  ‘And you’re going to National Heritage.’

  ‘No.’ He looked utterly appalled. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘No, it’s just a guess.’ (I now know how the PM thinks. He thinks exactly as I do. What I think today, he thinks tomorrow – and Peter Riddell412 comes up with a week later. The PM is completely predictable.)

  ‘You know, don’t you?’

  ‘No, it’s my hunch, that’s all.’

  He didn’t believe me. He looked profoundly distressed. ‘I’d rather stay here. I’d rather carry on as Financial Secretary.’

  ‘Just be ready for it, that’s all.’ I wanted to add, ‘And remember who would be ideal as your junior minister’ – and half did, but he wasn’t listening. I said, ‘I’ll be back in an hour. Good luck.’

  I then went off to have coffee in the Pugin Room with a constituent (son of the rector of Handbridge) and a second coffee with the folk from the Missing Persons Helpline, pathetically checking with Jenny (virtually between sips) to see if there were ‘any messages’ for me.

  At 11.45 I returned to the Treasury. Stephen was in his room – surrounded by the team, the officials, John K.,413 Culpin – champagne glasses in hand.

  ‘Congratulations Secretary of State,’ I said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’m not allowed to disclose it for the time being – but it’s the Cabinet.’

  ‘Yes,’ sighed Culpin. ‘Yet another Financial Secretary moves on without reforming CGT.’

  Glasses drained, the crowd departed. Stephen closed the door. ‘You were right.’

  ‘Well done.’

  ‘It’s ghastly. What on earth can he have been thinking about? I know nothing about the arts. Anything would have been better. Agriculture. Anything.’

  ‘The PM takes the view that this is the department that helps us deliver a nation at ease with itself.’

  ‘Oh God!’ He laughed.

  ‘Did you discuss junior ministers?’ I already knew the answer.

  ‘No, no. He just said I’d like you become a Privy Counsellor, join the Cabinet and it’s the DNH. And I just said, “Thank you very much”. What else could I say?’

  I had to go back to the House, to be in attendance upon V. Bottomley at the official opening of the Samaritans exhibition I’ve sponsored (!), but then I met up with Stephen again and, with John K., in the ministerial car we drove over to Beauchamp Place. Over the pasta, he simply kept repeating how he couldn’t understand how the PM could have given him the job – ‘it’s a non-job’. He’s clearly of the view that the concept of the department is pretty laughable and he can’t bear the thought that he’ll be away from ‘real politics’. When I returned from the telephone (again) and reported that there was no summons for me, he sweetly said, ‘But I’m going to need you more than ever. I know nothing about it, absolutely nothing.’ It’s true.

  THURSDAY 21 JULY 1994

  The reshuffle gets a good press. And I have to say that, apart from one lapse in judgem
ent and good taste at the lowest echelon (the inexplicable exclusion of yours truly), the PM hasn’t done a bad job. The upper reaches of the Cabinet are unchanged. Patten goes (of course), Wakeham goes (past his sell-by date),414 Brooke goes (ditto), MacGregor goes – which is the one surprise: a year ago he was going to be Chancellor, now it’s all over. I thought him impressive and, pace some of the buffeting on rail privatisation, a safe pair of hands. (Round here that’s almost the highest accolade one fellow can bestow on another: ‘a safe pair of hands’.) David Hunt (my friend) moves up to be Chancellor of the Duchy, Cabinet Office spokesman and behind-the-scenes Mr Fix-It; Gillian goes to Education (exactly right); William to Agriculture (I’ve not seen mud on his boots, but then I wouldn’t have thought he often gets out of the Range Rover); and Portillo gets Employment. The newcomers: Stephen; Brian Mawhinney415 at Transport (well…); Jonathan Aitken as Chief Secretary (excellent); Robert Cranborne416 as Lord Privy Seal (the Cecils are back – all’s well with the world); and, of course, Jeremy as Minister without Portfolio and party chairman. The Times looks forward to ‘a period of competent and confident government at last’.

  At 9.00 a.m. Stephen and I arrived at the DNH. It’s next to Canada House, just off Trafalgar Square, a vast modern interior like a Manhattan bank. The Secretary of State’s suite is impressive: a spacious office (light wood furniture, comfy sofas), an airy outer office, a proper bathroom and even (if I want it) a reasonable sized office for me. The private office team were welcoming – young, fresh-faced, friendly, the private secretary unaware that Stephen is already planning to replace him with John K. The Permanent Secretary417 was shorter, smoother, less-Mandarin-like than I’d expected. He greeted me with excessive effusion: ‘I have heard so much about you!’ I realised that how he appeared to me must be how I appear to many people – which is depressing.