Breaking the Code

by Gyles Brandreth

  What fuelled his ambition?

  I didn’t do well at school. I failed. I was a disaster. I remember canvassing in Edinburgh with Malcolm Rifkind. We passed his old school and I said, ‘I bet you were a prefect.’ He said, ‘No, I wasn’t actually,’ and then he told me how, for fun, he had done a test on the Cabinet and three-quarters of the Cabinet had failed to become prefects too. I’ve often thought failure to succeed at school drives you to want to succeed afterwards. It’s ironic how few school captains appear to go on to do anything else. It’s almost as if they’ve achieved what they want to achieve. I still want to achieve.

  I mentioned a line of Aristotle Onassis: ‘I must keep aiming higher and higher − even though I know how silly it is.’

  Jeffrey chuckled, ‘That’s good. The line I love of Aristotle Onassis is: “If you can count it, you haven’t got any.”’

  MONDAY 6 SEPTEMBER 1999

  I am making two films for ITN: one about the nature of leadership, the other about the future of the Conservative Party – is there life after death? I went down to Alfriston in Sussex to see Denis Healey and get some historical perspective. The joy with Denis is that, though he is now eighty-two and beginning to shrink, he remains so certain about everything. Sitting in his handsome mock-Lutyens sun lounge, weighing Clement Attlee and Margaret Thatcher in the scales, the name of the Leader of the Opposition cropped up. ‘William Hague?’ snorted Denis. ‘He’s a twerp. A twerp. There’s nothing more to be said. Forget him, forget it. Move on.’

  Denis is not troubled by self-doubt. And he is blessed in Edna. I like her approach to life. As she brought in the coffee and ginger cake, I said, ‘How are you?’

  She replied, pleasantly: ‘You don’t need to know. If you’ve got worries, keep them to yourself. A trouble shared is a trouble doubled.’

  FRIDAY 10 SEPTEMBER 1999

  I have been granted the pre-conference interview with the Leader of the Opposition. (Perhaps no one else wanted it?) I went to see him at Central Office in Smith Square. The foyer is now New Conservative: colour scheme by Gap, Sky News on the TV, The Independent the one newspaper on the coffee table. The only vestige of William’s predecessors is a small bust of Winston Churchill, the last bald leader of the party. Beneath a huge portrait of a purposive Master Hague, finger pointing to the future, is a yellow flyer inviting the faithful to sign up for a seminar at which ‘leading professional consultants’ will provide ‘an excellent opportunity to perfect your skills in three key areas: presentation, personal development, interview technique’. (A four-hour session: £10 including lunch.)

  I had a good hour with William, but I came away with nothing. Because of yesterday’s excitement,671 I felt obliged to ask him all sorts of impertinent questions. Was he gay? Had he ever had any homosexual experiences? Would he mind if his children were gay? He played it all with a straight bat. I moved on to confront him, rather rudely, with his failure to make an impact. He answered, genially, ‘Time will tell.’

  I confronted him with his critics: ‘The unkind ones picture you as a foetus in a baseball cap,’ I said. ‘The others see you as an old man in a young man’s body, an odd-looking political nerd reading Hansard at the age of seven. What do you say to that?’ He said something anodyne.

  Interviewing a safe pair of hands like William will never be easy. He won’t drop catches. I asked him if he had a favourite maxim. ‘I think Willie Whitelaw said, I think he actually said to me, “Nothing is ever so good or so bad as it first seems in politics.”’

  Seb (who sat in attendance at the interview, with the glossy-lipped Amanda Platell)672 claims his boss is ‘the most qualified man who ever wanted to be Prime Minister’. Denis Healey says he’s a twerp. I reckon the Whitelaw maxim may be nearer the mark. William is thirty-eight, a considerable achiever, likeable, clear-headed, quick-witted, rational, reasonable, intelligent, articulate, thoughtful, shrewd. But something’s missing. I was impressed, I wasn’t moved. I was charmed, but not inspired. In theatrical terms, he is a first-class leading man: he knows the lines, he won’t bump into the furniture, he’ll never miss a performance. But he isn’t a star in the way Blair is. He won’t be Prime Minister. (Foreign Secretary perhaps, twenty years from now, in our next administration.)

  WEDNESDAY 6 OCTOBER 1999

  I am in Blackpool for the Conservative Party conference. I stood at the back of the hall to listen to Jeffrey’s speech. Our mayoral candidate scored a conference triumph. As he and Mary emerged afterwards I hugged them and they beamed. The activists adore him. They love him for what he is: a gung-ho, no-nonsense, tub-thumping rallier to the cause. They love his loyalty. They love his certainty. They love his energy. They feel he is a winner. Of course, what they don’t know is that the hierarchy of the Conservative Party would rather have had anyone – anyone – other than Jeffrey as candidate for Mayor. But the activists have the final say, so they’ve been lumbered with Jeffrey and now they’ve got to back him to the hilt.

  I am having dinner with Adam Boulton.673 He is very jolly and gets fatter every time I meet him. (I have just seen Tim Rice. Ditto.)

  WEDNESDAY 13 OCTOBER 1999

  Went to Birmingham to be the MC and warm-up act for John Major. He is on tour with his memoirs. He put a nice inscription in my copy, but whenever I see him nowadays, I feel he is looking at me warily, as though he thinks I know something I shouldn’t, as though he can’t entirely trust me.674 (Norma was lovely. Fastidious, intelligent, normal. As ever.)

  MONDAY 1 NOVEMBER 1999

  I am on the train coming back from Salisbury. I have been interviewing Ted Heath. His Queen Anne house in the Cathedral Close is quite perfect. ‘When Roy Jenkins came to lunch he looked out of the drawing-room window and said, “Ted, this must be one of the ten finest views in Britain.” I said, “Oh really, which do you think are the other nine?”’ As he told me the story, Ted’s shoulders heaved with happiness. The old monster was in mellow mood. He showed me some of his treasures: his orchids (a present from Fidel Castro), the dish that once belonged to Disraeli, the Richard Strauss manuscript, the Churchill paintings. ‘This is the one I prefer. It’s got two signatures. Winston signed it when he painted it and then signed it again when he gave it to me. What will you have? Tea, gin, whisky, champagne?’ It was not yet four o’clock, so I settled for tea. My proposed theme was the qualities required for successful political leadership. He seemed happy with that. ‘You suggest some and I’ll respond.’

  ‘Energy,’ I began.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Stamina.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘An ability to perceive reality efficiently and tolerate uncertainty.’

  ‘Hmm. Yes.’

  ‘An ability to inspire loyalty and maintain discipline.’

  ‘Yes, but it depends how it’s done. Political leadership is different from military leadership. In politics you can’t just lay down the law and expect people to follow it. We see an attempt being made to operate in that way in the Conservative Party now. Hague says, “I’ll do it my way!” That’s not political leadership. It’s an attempt to impose a particular point of view. True political leadership is about persuasion, and about listening to and taking account of others.’

  ‘But also about having a clear personal vision, knowing where you want to go?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And to that end you have to be determined, single-minded, to have what Napoleon admired, the mental power de fixer les objets longtemps sans être fatigué?’

  ‘Yes, yes, absolutely. [I knew I’d score with that one.] The great leaders will always concentrate on the big picture, not get too bogged down in the day-to-day. I remember, in the middle of one crisis [in 1958] − three ministers, including the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had just resigned − I went to see Macmillan in his room at No. 10 to talk to him about the timing of the announcement of their replacements. I found him sitting in his armchair with his feet up on a stool, reading in front of the fire. He agreed to what I proposed
and then said, “But please don’t worry me any more. Can’t you see that I’m trying to finish Dombey and Son before I go off on this foreign tour tomorrow morning?”’

  ‘Would that approach be possible today?’

  ‘Yes, perfectly. It was that approach that allowed me my music, my concerts; it allowed me my sailing in the spring and the summer. It’s a question of how you handle the job. I didn’t interfere with departmental ministers just for the sake of it. I only became involved if something appeared to be going wrong.’

  ‘When did that style of government begin to change?’

  ‘With Harold Wilson. He was a workaholic. He had a small group around him and they met constantly, working into the early hours. They say Wilson was a great operator, but to what effect? There’s nothing left of Wilson now.’

  ‘And, of course, Mrs Thatcher only needed five hours’ sleep and never stopped.’

  ‘Hmm, yes, well. One saw the consequences.’

  He gave me plenty of good stuff – scorning Thatcher and Reagan; dismissing Mandela; praising Castro and Chairman Mao. He doesn’t care. And mock him as we may, he has his place in history. On 24 January 1972, Ted signed the Treaty of Accession in Brussels. There’s no turning back. ‘It was the proudest moment of my life.’

  SUNDAY 21 NOVEMBER 1999

  It’s all over. ‘Jeffrey Archer destroyed’ is the Sunday Telegraph headline. The News of the World has nailed him as a liar who was prepared to commit perjury in his libel action in 1986. The feeling is he’ll end up in gaol. Three to five years, they reckon.675

  MONDAY 22 NOVEMBER 1999

  The press are going to town: ‘Lying Archer may face jail: scandal returns to haunt Conservatives’ – The Guardian; ‘Archer faces criminal charges: Hague’s judgement questioned as sleaze returns to Tory Party’ – The Times. On the front page of the Telegraph there’s a huge picture of Andy Colquhoun [Archer’s former mistress and personal assistant], in floods of tears, running the gauntlet of newsmen outside her home. It’s a cruel world.

  And a ridiculous one. This afternoon I made my way to Kensington Fire Station to film Michael Portillo and William Hague on the hustings. William didn’t turn up. Michael did – and, as he arrived, he was ambushed by Peter Tatchell and friends.676 In the scrum that followed, I was knocked over. I carried on reporting. Flat on my back from the pavement’s edge I declared: ‘I’m in the gutter, but I am still looking at the stars!’ Maddeningly, the cameraman had stopped rolling. My gem was lost. (’Twas ever thus.)

  Also today: Cherie Blair is pregnant, aged forty-five. I did a piece about it for CBS News. The hapless Leader of the Opposition is childless, friendless, sleaze-ridden, but our sainted Prime Minister just goes from strength to strength. Where does he get the time? And the energy? (He is the father: we can be certain of that.)

  TUESDAY 7 DECEMBER 1999

  Coffee with Christopher Lee,677 at 6 ft 5 in. the tallest leading actor in the history of cinema. Also, I discovered, the most long-winded. I met up with him at a discreet hotel behind Sloane Square (11 Cadogan Gardens). I got out my recording equipment and, at a little after eleven, I asked him my first question. At a little after twelve, he was still answering it. Fifty minutes later, when he was just getting into his stride with his answer to my second question, I interrupted (which I know was rude), made my excuses and left.

  Lunch at the Gay Hussar with Geoffrey Atkinson. He produces the Rory Bremner show678 and his commitment is humbling. He really cares about politics. (He is more serious about politics than almost any politician I know.) He sees his programme doing what the opposition ought to be doing but isn’t: with in-depth research, analysis and understanding, calling the government of the day to account.

  Tea with Paul Burrell.679 His devotion to Diana is not in question, but I do wonder if he was quite as intimate as he implies.

  MONDAY 13 DECEMBER 1999

  I might tonight have been at Jeffrey’s champagne and shepherd’s pie party in his penthouse by the Thames. Invitations were sent out a while back, but last week a letter came from our host (in his own hand) saying, with regret, he had decided to cancel. So, instead, tonight I made my way to 14 Cottesmore Gardens, W8, to the gala bash given by Mr and Mrs Conrad Black.680 It was generously done, but the crush was incredible: the establishment was out in force, braying smugly at one another and gushing over our shiny and complacent host and his glamorous wife. (I mock, but I gushed and gurgled with the worst of them.) I was pleased to be there: it made an amusing scene: but though, I suppose I am part of it, I don’t feel part of it at all. I don’t like these events: I don’t like these people (certainly not en masse): why do I go? I suppose I feel I can’t not be there.

  2000

  WEDNESDAY 8 MARCH 2000

  It is Ash Wednesday and my fifty-second birthday. I am in Dubai taking tea with His Highness General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Raschid Al Maktoum, the Crown Prince and de facto ruler of the kingdom.

  Actually, we have coffee not tea – served to me as I sit on a sofa at the end of a drawing room the size of a tennis court. I begin to tell His Highness how wonderful Dubai appears to be. He says nothing. I tell him how wonderful he appears to be. Still he says nothing. I am thinking this is going to be an impossible interview, when a servant steps forward and collects our coffee cups. The Sheikh smiles: ‘We Arabs do not talk until we have finished our coffee.’

  Throughout our meeting, which lasts two hours, courtiers come and go, messengers approach and retreat: sometimes he receives them, hears what they have to say, takes a document from them, sometimes he raises a hand and silently they back away. I feel I am in a scene from one of Shakespeare’s history plays: ‘My liege, I bring news from France!’

  He charms me and disarms me. ‘I am running my country myself, with my people. I do not have advisers. I think they are a waste of time.’

  ‘Will you ever give your people the vote?’

  ‘What is democracy for? To make people happy and safe. My people are happy and they are safe.’

  As I leave he gives me a birthday present – beautifully wrapped. ‘I think your wife will enjoy these,’ he purrs. At once I picture diamonds – or perhaps pearls. It turns out that His Highness is giving me a collection of his own love poems – translated into so-so English. Does he have a message for me to take away from my visit?

  ‘For you?’ He ponders for a moment and then looks me directly in the eye. ‘Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a gazelle or a lion, Mr Brandreth. When the sun comes up, you’d better be running.’

  THURSDAY 1 JUNE 2000

  Last October, when Piers Merchant eventually stepped down as MP for Beckenham (it was just a moment’s folly in the park!), I got the call from Central Office suggesting I might be just the man for the seat … I asked for twelve hours to think it over, but I knew at once it was not for me. I don’t think Michèle could have borne it and I am not sure I want it any more. Government is exciting, but we won’t be in government again for a decade – or more. The backbencher’s lot is thankless – mostly futile, relentlessly frustrating and financially quite challenging … Jacqui Lait (who came second to me when I put up for Chester) became our candidate in Beckenham and I think they are lucky to have her.681

  And I am lucky to be here in New York. I flew in on Concorde on Monday. I sat in the cockpit with the pilot as we landed. Last night we had dinner with Walter Cronkite, the great CBS news anchor, still voted ‘the most trusted man in America’. He took us to the Windows on the World restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center. I am off now to lunch at Sardi’s with Barry Humphries. Tomorrow we are seeing his show at the Booth Theater. I reckon Dame Edna is the funniest performer on earth. I am sure Beckenham has its good points, but I like New York in June. How about you?

  MONDAY 5 JUNE 2000


  4.45 p.m.: Meeting with Alastair Campbell at 10 Downing Street. He’s an odd mixture of bluff, gruff and rough-diamond charming. He’s clearly in command of the ship.

  I went to set up an interview with Tony Blair. ‘You’re seeing Tony on Wednesday,’ he said.

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘At Wembley. You’re both speaking to the massed ranks of the WI. Ten thousand women.’

  ‘They’ll love Tony,’ I said. ‘He’ll have them eating out of his hand.’

  ‘Really? What are they looking for?’

  There and then I scribbled a few opening lines for Tony to use. Alastair took them, amused.

  As I was leaving, I saw a photo of the Blairs’ baby Leo pinned onto a noticeboard on the office wall. I stopped and cooed at the picture.

  ‘Take it,’ barked Alastair. ‘Take it.’ He yanked the picture from the board and thrust it into my hands. ‘I don’t want it. I can’t stand it. Don’t know what it was doing there. Take it. I’ll be glad to see the back of it.’

  WEDNESDAY 7 JUNE 2000

  Disaster for Blair at the WI. I arrived as he was finishing – but he was finished, poor man, almost as he began. Wembley is a barn, the acoustic was terrible. I don’t know if he used my opening lines or not, but almost at once the audience felt patronised and decided he was giving them a party political broadcast on the wonderful things New Labour is achieving for the NHS and that’s not what they were after. He didn’t talk to them: he talked at them. And when the barracking and the slow hand-clapping started, he did not know what to do. He should have torn up his script, of course, and just taken questions – been himself, been human. Instead, wide-eyed and sweating, he struggled on with his script as written: because it had already been issued to the press he felt he had to deliver it all.