Breaking the Code

by Gyles Brandreth

  LATER

  Ken was brilliant. He is extraordinary. He defused all the hostility. He even had Lamont on his feet saying he’d got it right! He was conciliatory, he was good-humoured, he was so reasonable. It’s all been a misunderstanding. The press are guilty: a lot of ‘farcical misrepresentation’. Of course, there’s to be a full debate. Of course, we must have proper scrutiny. There will be no binding decisions made at ECOFIN on 2 December. That’s guaranteed, copper-bottomed. Make no mistake, the government isn’t frightened of debate. The government welcomes debate, hungers for it. And, remember, everything is subject to parliamentary approval anyway. The man is a master.

  MONDAY 25 NOVEMBER 1996

  I’ve taken to turning up for Transport prayers ten minutes ahead of time in order to have a while à deux with the Secretary of State [Sir George Young]. I like him, but I don’t really know him. For example, this morning we agreed that Ken is brilliant, that he rescued the fat from the fire on Monday, that his Budget performance yesterday was a model of bonhomie and shrewd politics, but we didn’t then go on to discuss what happens after we’ve lost the election. With colleagues one doesn’t know that well one still goes through the charade of pretending victory is possible.

  Transport prayers are oddly formal. At nine we troop into a conference room. The Permanent Secretary and heads of department – about a dozen in all – line up on one side of the table, and we sit facing them on the other. George then goes down the line, inviting news and views from each area – rail, shipping, road, air, the press office etc. It’s a curious ritual, but I suppose it keeps everyone roughly up to speed. (Ken or Stephen would regard it as a complete waste of time.) Sometimes, but not always, the ministers then troop back to George’s room for a coffee and chat. The chat is fairly stilted. John Watts612 is pretty leaden. Giles Goschen613 looks like an elongated version of Jiminy Cricket and can be quite fun, but somehow fun is out of place at the Department of Transport. (At the DoE when Robin Ferrers returned to prayers after he’d been off with his bad leg, at 9.00 a.m. Gummer arrived with a tray of glasses and a bottle of chilled champagne. That’s the way to do it.) At Transport, the issue of the hour is the proposed ministerial photocall: to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the zebra crossing (or some-such) the four ministers will be pictured crossing Abbey Road (or equivalent) in the manner of the Beatles. Given their unusual figures, two bean poles and a brace of Bunters, I urge caution. But I think they want to do it.

  TUESDAY 3 DECEMBER 1996

  No votes last night (Budget debates continuing) so M and I went with the Willetts to Le Bonheur at the Curzon. It was quaint and lovely. We then had supper at L’Odeon, which wasn’t quite so jolly, only because poor David is fixated with the outcome of the hearings on the wretched memorandum and not optimistic. While we were reflecting on David’s future, the Conservatives of Kensington & Chelsea were dissecting Nick Scott’s past. In the end, despite our good efforts (possibly because of them – Associations hate attempted interference from on high) he lost the vote: 509 to 439. He had pleaded with them, paraded his track record, told them he’d as good as given up the bottle, but to no avail. It turned out that what really turned them against the poor man wasn’t his being found kissing the pavement in Bournemouth, it was the fact that the day before he failed to turn up at his own activists’ conference reception … So the great white hope, who thirty years ago was featured in Time as ‘the man most likely to’, ends up in the gutter and without a seat. Drink is a demon. The other day coming down the steps towards the members’ cloakroom, we found one of our colleagues spreadeagled on the stone floor. And Iain Mills is now in such a bad way that when votes are coming up we provide him with a minder to help him stagger into the right lobby.

  There’s trouble looming on every front. When Labour wins the Barnsley by-election next week, we lose our majority. We may lose it before, of course, because Gorst is playing up again. The Chief is right: ‘What justice is there, when decent men like Nick Scott go down and shits like Gorst can hold the government to ransom?’

  We’re bracing ourselves for a major rebellion tomorrow on the Firearms Bill. There could be fifty or more who defy the whip614 – so many there’s nowt we can do, except accept it, pretend it hasn’t happened and move on. Since we’ll secure the business with opposition support, we’re hoping no one will notice.

  THURSDAY 5 DECEMBER 1996

  If it weren’t so heart-breaking, it would be very funny. We are disintegrating. We are in a massive hold and we can’t stop digging! Today’s Gallup poll puts Labour on 59 per cent and us on 22. We’re heading for wipe-out – and we seem DETERMINED to make it worse.

  Yesterday Jon Sopel [BBC journalist] had lunch with Ken – and got the impression from the Chancellor that the Chancellor believes ‘someone close to the Prime Minister’ is trying to modify the agreed line on EMU. Said Ken (of course, he didn’t say it, but he could have implied it) if there’s any shift on our ‘wait and see’ policy on EMU, then I’m off and a good chunk of the government will be coming with me. Sopel ran the story – and all hell has broken loose. I hope I am not the cause of this mayhem. I have said to Ken that Finkelstein is now thinking maybe we should rule ourselves out of the first wave and is sharing his more sceptical thoughts with No. 10 – but Ken won’t be taking what I’ve said as his sole source of intelligence, will he? Danny seems amused. Ken has said to Mawhinney, ‘Tell your kids to get their scooters off my lawn.’ Danny is rather flattered and excited.

  Anyway, denials have been rushed out on all sides. ‘No one is threatening to resign. The PM and the Chancellor are in perfect harmony.’ Meanwhile, up in Committee Room 10, the 1922 Committee have been gathering – and shouting the odds. ‘Clarke must go!’ ‘Clarke must stay!’ ‘We can’t go into a general election like this.’ I was the whip on duty, so I sat on the platform, between Sir Marcus and Dame Jill (combined age 140), gazing out at the feuding fray, thinking this is totally bizarre. The most successful political party in the history of democracy is committing hara-kiri and here I am with a ringside seat.

  Being ‘whip on duty’ at the 1922 is oddly daunting. There’s really nothing it: your only job is to read out the next week’s business and the proposed whipping for it and be ready to answer questions on it. It’s made to seem daunting by virtue of having the rest of the Whips’ Office sitting in judgement at the far end of the room and because, prior to the Committee meeting, there’s a rehearsal in the Chief’s office. It’s the rehearsal that’s alarming. Shana has typed out the script and you read it out loud to a trio comprising the Chief, the Deputy and Murdo – who then fire sample questions at you. The sample questions are invariably more taxing than the real ones. At the meeting itself, the rule is say as little as possible and when some tosspot from the floor makes an outrageous demand, give the traditional ‘you might say that, I couldn’t possibly comment’ look and promise to convey the message to the Chief Whip.

  WEDNESDAY 11 DECEMBER 1996

  David Willetts has resigned. The view is that he had no alternative because the criticism in the Standards and Privileges Committee report is harsher than expected. They accuse him of ‘dissembling’ and say that in future they propose to ‘take evidence on oath’ – suggesting, without stating, that had David been on oath he’d have answered their charges other than he did. It’s unfair – actually, it’s ridiculous: a career blighted for no good reason – but in the office the feeling is that it went more badly wrong for David than it need have done for two reasons: a) David handled his defence badly. He should have played the apologetic innocent, not tried to justify himself. The Trollope line: ‘A graceful apology etc.’ That nonsense of saying that ‘wants our advice’ means ‘lacks our advice’ because David was using the verb in the eighteenth-century way was disastrous. (I don’t think it was David’s idea. I think it was a ruse dreamt up by one of the civil servants.) b) He was unlucky in having Quentin Davies on the committee. QD is a prim, prissy, priggish disappointed man, clever but
flawed, who, by siding with Labour, was able to successfully shaft his cleverer more successful colleague – and feel good/holier-than-thou about it at the same time.

  The Chief’s view is the office view. This is monstrously unfair. Davies is a shit. David is a good man and he will be back in the fold sooner rather than later. The PM has told him as much ‘in terms’.

  I haven’t spoken to David yet. He’s gone home. He will be devastated and will see this as more terminal than it is. His only weakness as a person (and I love him) is that he takes himself and his career so seriously. That, of course, is also the secret of his success. I have written him a long note, not saying the above, but saying (because it’s true) that he has ‘done the decent thing’ and he will be back at the centre almost instantly – and for the long term – because he is, quite simply, indispensable. (This is true and, in many ways, alarming. We do not have that many thinking people actively engaged in the practice of Conservative politics. That’s how Danny has managed to come from nowhere – a top-floor office at the Social Market Foundation – to the heart of government inside a year. He has walked right into Downing Street – and been welcomed with open arms – not just because he is so good (and has the knack of making bright ideas accessible to politicians), but also because there was no one else there. You would have thought that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom would be surrounded by the brightest and best minds in the land. He isn’t. There is an intellectual vacuum at the heart of government – so we have to be thankful there are the likes of David and Danny on hand, ready, willing and able to fill it. And I have to be thankful that these chaps are my chums.

  LATER

  Fall-out from David’s resignation:

  1. A new policy on whips’ notes. David only ended up in this mess because his note to the Chief was kept on file. There seems to be a dispute as to who has legitimate claim on messages sent to the Chief Whip. Are they his personal property to be kept by him and disposed of as he sees fit? Or are they, as whips are all government ministers, government property, to be treated accordingly? Some blame R. Ryder for not destroying the evidence… The question is: what to do in the future? The Chief’s conclusion is: keep writing the notes – he needs the information, so does the PM. But, sleep easy, boys, from now on the notes will be shredded on a regular basis.

  2. Michael Bates becomes the new Paymaster-General (he has been sulky since the summer: now he is a very happy bunny) and I move from the Lower Office to the Upper Office and become a Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Treasury615 and – better still – assume the mantle of the whip responsible for the First Secretary (aka Deputy Prime Minister), for the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and for HM Treasury. (And, yes, I have noticed. My advancement is due entirely to someone else’s misfortune. And the someone else is a proper friend at that.)

  MONDAY 16 DECEMBER 1996

  10.40 p.m.: We have survived the Fisheries vote. This is the one we lost last year and, had the UUs been against us, feared we might lose again. We summoned the lame and the halt (I was on the ambulance run), we brought ministers back from hither and yon (Brussels and Belfast mainly), the UUs were persuaded to abstain, likewise the poisonous Gorst, and it turned out fine: we coasted home with a majority of eleven. The PM is delighted. And relieved.

  The evening began with the Christmas party at No. 12. It felt busier, fuller, jollier, more relaxed than last year. (Or is it just that I am more at ease in the office?) There was much embracing of the Willetts. David is going to be given a ‘thinking’ role at Central Office. He’d like to be chairman of the Research Department, and if Danny is happy (and he is), why not?

  Heseltine stood by the doors gazing imperiously across the room. I told him that I’m now the whip designated to his domain. He glanced down at me briefly, uncomprehending, nodded a wintry smile and immediately resumed his lofty survey of the sea of quaffing, sluicing heads. Ann was rather more giving. I embraced her and introduced her to Michèle. Ann managed a good forty-five seconds of tinkly charm before moving on. (M said to me later, ‘Don’t bother, really don’t bother. They’re not interested in you, and they’re certainly not interested in me.’)

  Contrasting Heseltine’s common touch with Major’s is fascinating. The PM arrived and the first person he saw was Sarah Box.616 He clapped his hands with genuine delight. She giggled and was thrilled. He took her hands in his, they spun round together – I thought for a moment, he was going to pick her up and swing her round by the arms. He kissed her. It was warm, it was affectionate, there was a frisson on either side. It was real. The PM is attractive to women. The PM is attractive in a way Heseltine (superficially more handsome, a self-styled hero) could never be.

  Howell [James], like a slightly camp royal equerry, kept a few paces behind the boss. I said to him, ‘I think we should stop saying our policy on EMU is “wait and see”. It sounds weak, indecisive, as if we don’t know where we’re going. Why don’t we replace “wait and see” with “negotiate and decide”?’

  ‘Excellent!’ He called the PM back. ‘Have you heard Gyles’s idea?’ The PM, beaming his nice beam, listened, laughed, agreed and moved on – in search (very sensibly) of something younger and prettier.

  TUESDAY 17 DECEMBER 1996

  It seems we over-egged the pudding. To assist us in securing last night’s majority Derek paired three of our people with three Labour people and with three Liberals. All hell is breaking out. We’re being accused of cheating, double-dealing, ‘subverting the democratic process’. We can’t very well deny it, but, within the office and outside it, we’re saying nothing. Discussion is verboten. It seems this is a ploy we may have tried before. When silencing us, the Deputy said, ‘We’ve had next to no majority for months. How do you think we’ve done it? Just be grateful.’

  The scam was discovered only because last night’s majority was surprisingly handsome under the circumstances and Archie Kirkwood (Liberal whip) and George Mudie (Labour’s pairing whip) decided to double-check names and numbers. If we hadn’t done the double-dealing and the UUs had voted against us (as they might well have done) we’d have lost by one vote. Now, of course, Dewar has climbed onto his Scottish Presbyterian high horse and declared that all pairing, all cooperation, all communication via the ‘usual channels’ is off.

  I am on my way to the Treasury: Finance Bill Planning Meeting in the Financial Secretary’s office. It seems we will have no majority on the committee. I think it’s all going to be rather fun.

  WEDNESDAY 18 DECEMBER 1996

  There’s a wonderfully pompous first leader in The Times: ‘WHIPPED SENSELESS – A stupid piece of double-dealing does yet more damage.’ The Chief will not like this. He does not like us to get press of any kind – never mind press like this. The Tea Room is equally unimpressed. As is Michèle.

  ‘Did you know this was going on?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Were you a party to this?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Would you have been?’

  ‘Er—’

  ‘It’s utterly wrong, utterly indefensible, isn’t it?’

  ‘Er—’

  Breakfast at the Ritz. Stephen, Danny, John K[ingman], Tim [Rycroft]. I have poached egg, bacon, mushrooms. My one complaint here is that the tea gets cold. It is still the prettiest dining room in London. And it is good to be a Lord Commissioner of the Treasury breakfasting with the Secretary of State for Health and the director of the Conservative Research Department and talking of the great figures of our time as if we knew them – because we do know them! We raise our glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice to the excitements that lie ahead. Within the year Stephen sees himself as Leader of the Party – and why not? Of course, as I don’t remind him (because I don’t need to), he is not alone. Heseltine, Clarke, Howard, Portillo, Rifkind, Forsyth, even Master Hague and Mrs Shepard are no doubt all harbouring the same fantasy – and, for all we know, hosting comparable breakfasts in other parts of town.

  546 Minister of Stat
e at the Department of the Environment 1993–7; MEP for NE Essex 1979–89; MP for Skipton & Ripon 1987–2010.

  547 Harriet Harman had chosen to send one of her children to a selective grammar school and had been openly criticised by her shadow Cabinet colleague Clare Short, among others.

  548 MP for Aldridge-Brownhills since 1979.

  549 Labour MP for Caerphilly 1983–2001.

  550 Jeremy Sinden, the actor son of Donald and Diana Sinden, died of cancer on 29 May, aged forty-five. The Sindens and the Cadells had been friends since the ’40s: their eldest sons, born in the same year, died in the same year.

  551 Shadow Scottish Secretary; Labour MP for Hamilton since 1978.

  552 Michael Baughen, Bishop of Chester 1982–96.

  553 The whip with responsibility for the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food.

  554 The government was advised for the first time that there was a possibility that Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (‘mad cow disease’) could be transmitted from beef to humans. Stephen Dorrell and Douglas Hogg came to the House with statements outlining the government’s proposed course of action in the light of the new scientific advice.

  555 1901–2000, novelist; her only daughter Raine married the 8th Earl Spencer, father of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1976.

  556 On 11 April the government lost the Staffordshire South East by-election, its thirty-fifth successive by-election defeat.

  557 Former journalist; Press Secretary to Tony Blair as Leader of the Labour Party 1994–7, as Prime Minister 1997–2003.