Open Arms

by Vince Cable

  She couldn’t sleep. When she finally dozed off as dawn was breaking, she was roused by noises outside: a car door slamming, voices, scraping, the crunching of the gravel drive. Opening the curtains to investigate she saw a young peroxide blonde woman in her drive setting up a camera tripod. One van was parked at the drive entrance and another, with a satellite receiver on top, was pulling up. Then she saw a head appearing above the garden hedge followed by a long-range camera, aimed at her. She hastily withdrew and returned to bed, shaking with a mixture of anger and fear.

  Half an hour later, there was a loud knock on the door. It was just after 6.30am. She waited. The knocking continued. Soon her daughters would go down to see what was going on. So she hastily dressed and went down and opened the door. There was the young woman with a man carrying a portable TV camera just behind her: ‘Good morning, Mrs Thompson. I am from Sky. Do you have any comments on the Mail story? Do you plan to resign?’

  She felt a surge of rage, a need to release the bottled-up emotions of the last few hours; indeed the last week. ‘How dare you!’ she shot back. ‘Get out of my garden or I will call the police.’ She slammed the door. The journalists stayed put and when they knocked again, very loudly, Kate opened up to avoid waking the house.

  The female reporter looked about sixteen but she had the condescending manner of a matriarch offering to help a confused adolescent in distress. ‘I appreciate that we are disturbing your domestic life, Mrs Thompson. But you are a big story – coming after the factory demonstration. Either we hang around and make a nuisance of ourselves, and wake the neighbours, or you cooperate by giving me a clip that we can use during the day and we go away. I suggest that you cooperate. Why don’t you put on something smarter and we will rendezvous with you on your lawn in a few minutes?’

  Kate did as she was told. And she returned to the camera team prepared for the interview. She looked back at the house. She saw three puzzled young faces glued to a bedroom window. ‘Minister, would you like to comment on the press story this morning?’ the journalist began.

  ‘No, I have nothing to say. I am getting on with my job in government.’

  ‘Can you tell me something about the man in the photo?’

  ‘He is the CEO of Parrikar Avionics – he will, I am sure, be making a statement in Mumbai.’

  ‘Are you in touch with him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you plan to resign?’

  ‘No. As long as I have the confidence of the PM I shall remain in government. That’s all. Thank you.’

  As good as their word, the camera crews left. But she saw that the paparazzi were still there waiting to capture anyone moving inside and outside the house. She would have to go back and explain things to her daughters.

  At 8am the Secretary of State rang. ‘Sorry to hear your news, old girl. Bloody reptiles. Pity we can’t shoot them. I’ve been there myself, more than once. Just spoken to the PM. He agrees with me that, while this is a bloody mess, you haven’t done anything illegal or broken the ministerial code. Saw your clip. Well done. Didn’t drop any balls. Continue to stand your ground. No nonsense about resignation. We will come in behind you and the PM will be very robust on Marr at 9.30.’

  As the morning wore on she felt more and more like a trapped animal: fearful about what was to come next. The girls had brought her a cup of tea and given her a hug but she didn’t know what to say to them nor they to her. Then her friends called, reassuring her but furious that she hadn’t shared her secret. ‘Seems a very handsome man but you might have told us!’ ‘I bet Jonathan hit the roof. But how are the girls taking it?’ ‘Darling, you are a star! Top item in the news, two weeks in succession.’

  She realised that she should ring India. Deepak’s mobile was off, so she tried the home number he’d given her for an emergency. A woman answered, in English, with an educated Indian accent, so Kate mumbled: ‘Sorry, wrong number.’ Half an hour later Deepak rang back.

  ‘I’ve heard about the media storm in the UK,’ he told her. ‘It’s on the BBC website. No one here has really picked up on the picture. My wife made some comment about “your British crumpet” and I asked, in a friendly way, about her Bengali novelist. We both laughed. Seemingly, no harm done.

  ‘The problem is my father. A really scurrilous hatchet job by one of the local papers. A lot of lies and innuendo. But they have made the connection between Dad and a serious mafioso: killer, kidnapper, general hoodlum, a Muslim with family links to Pakistani-backed terrorists – though the police have never laid a finger on him. Dad knew him years back. Did some business together. One of our good people, a project manager in Mumbai, was murdered recently and the press are suggesting that there is some gangland feud and implicating my father. He has never been under public attack like this before. He is in a really bad way. Look, when will we see each other again?’

  ‘Soon I hope,’ she replied.

  ‘But let the storm die down first,’ Deepak suggested.

  Kate realised as she ended the call that she had developed a strong emotional bond with this man five thousand miles away, in marked contrast to the stranger in the next room who was making his late breakfast, humming with affected unconcern.

  To avoid stares on the train the following morning, her private office had organised a ministerial car. When she entered the department there was the usual ‘Good morning, Minister’. But no one engaged her eyes. And when she reached the ministerial office there was a big bunch of flowers from her private office staff. She threw her arms around Susan and then her deputy and felt a deep pang of gratitude to the team she had appointed.

  The respite didn’t last long. A message came through from the whip’s office that the Speaker had allowed an Urgent Question from the opposition on Anglo-Indian relations.

  The question was clearly designed to make mischief. The fact that the Speaker had allowed it owed more to the deep animosity between the Speaker and the Prime Minister than to any real urgency. The Secretary of State would field the question and her job was to sit next to him looking calm, dignified, and deeply interested in the bilateral trade balance.

  The opposition spokesman was a boring man with little sense of occasion who specialised in reading out, verbatim, notes written for him by a researcher. His impersonation of a man reading a telephone directory in a dull, humourless monotone, however, merely highlighted a series of unintended double-entendres referring to the ‘penetration of our market’, the ‘climax of our recent exchanges’ and ‘growing intercourse between our two countries’. The schoolboy tittering on the back benches gradually swelled to a crescendo of hysterical laughter while the spokesman ploughed on oblivious and Kate, who had always blushed, turned deeper crimson as her humiliation grew. She was no longer listening when the Secretary of State rose to his feet, easily dealt with the opposition’s feeble question and calmly swatted aside others from the back benches.

  Towards the end of the session, however, the Speaker called an Asian MP who had earned the nickname the Member for Islamabad East and rarely ventured into unfamiliar territory, like British politics. He read out a question, which he stumbled over and which had clearly been written for him.

  ‘Can the Secretary of State tell the House if he has issued an export licence for missile related technology to India, for the company Pulsar?’

  Jim Chambers hesitated for an agonisingly long time and then replied: ‘I will have to look into the matter and reply in writing to the Honourable Gentleman.’

  At the end of the session the MP stood up again on a Point of Order and said: ‘The Secretary of State has refused to answer my question about the way the government is recklessly fuelling the arms race on the subcontinent. We have all heard the news stories that relations on the subcontinent are very tense. I demand a debate on the issue.’

  ‘The Honourable Member,’ replied the Speaker, ‘is not making a Point of Order, as he well knows. But he has made his point, which will, I am sure, be noted.’

  As i
ndeed it was, by several listening journalists who had already made the connection with the recent demonstration. Near panic descended on the department’s officials and the Secretary of State who could see their project unravelling. Kate’s love life was forgotten, for the moment.

  In Islamabad General Rashid, head of Inter-Services Intelligence, was summoned to a meeting with the Prime Minister, the Defence Minister and the military High Command. The Prime Minister sought advice on how he could respond to growing public unrest over the government’s lack of response to ‘Indian provocation’ and, more generally, to show that, as the world’s militarily strongest Islamic country, Pakistan would not let its coreligionists be ‘systematically humiliated’. A decision was taken in principle to carry out an underground test of the most powerful weapon yet developed by Pakistan – with Chinese assistance. It would have the capacity to obliterate Mumbai or Delhi. The decision would be reviewed after a month in the light of international developments. General Rashid was also asked to prepare an urgent note on ‘robust’ options involving covert special operations.

  Ganesh Parrikar had aged a decade in twenty-four hours. He had spent his business life mostly in the shadows and was close to completing his life’s work: transferring a profitable but ethically dubious business empire to his family who would build a recognised, respected brand in mainstream business across India and overseas. He had, of course, worried in the past that the rumours around his business activity might be given oxygen by the press, but whenever a scandal threatened, he had had warning, and a few telephone calls, from lawyers to editors and advertisers, sufficed to close it down. This time, he had had no warning. His enemies, and the press, no longer feared him. His vulnerability was painfully apparent.

  When he saw Deepak he broke down and sobbed. Deepak had never seen his father in this self-pitying state. And, as in most Indian father–son relationships, there was a reserve, a deference of the young to the old. He didn’t know what to say or how to help; he could only try to reassure him.

  ‘Daddy-ji, that picture was nothing. It just showed that man entering your office, nothing more.’

  ‘No, son. My reputation is now ruined. Respect has gone. What I am now is some tin-pot hoodlum.’

  ‘Daddy-ji, I have a suggestion. You told me about your plans for a charitable trust. Apart from the Tatas, and Azim Premji at Wipro, our big business tycoons have splashed their money on lavish weddings, jewellery, gold statues and mansions. You have a vision for helping the poor. Get the press people together. Tell them what you are doing and plan to do.’

  ‘A press conference? No idea what to do. Can you do it for me?’ Deepak saw that his talent for PR and the reputation management of modern business was now needed to rescue his father. A pity the Parrikar clan hadn’t gone down this road sooner.

  After a few days, the storm in London was starting to die down. Press coverage petered out. Kate remembered the phrase about next week’s chip paper. But her relationships were not so easily disposed of. She escaped tension at home by staying at her London flat, with regular calls to the girls who were confused and distressed. She sought reassurance from Deepak and, while it was clear that her feelings were reciprocated, her lover was increasingly preoccupied by his father’s psychological fragility.

  Then she was called in by the Prime Minister. He was in his small study next to the Cabinet Room: a cosy billet with thick carpets and settees, and a desk covered with family photos. In this misleadingly informal setting many of the key decisions affecting the country were made. When Kate entered, the grim faces of the PM, the Secretary of State and the Cabinet Secretary told her that this was likely to be a difficult meeting. The PM spoke first.

  ‘We have a problem, Kate. Our American friends, who were going to supply the Indians with a lot of expensive kit alongside ours, are getting very nervous about this Indian deal. The President doesn’t major on subtlety as you know, but he is concerned that premature disclosure could jeopardise the big plans he and his business friends have for building up an alliance with India. To cut a long story short, they are thinking of pulling out, or at least putting it on the back burner. They are very worried about the UK end of things. This company, Pulsar, seems to leak like a sieve; erratic management; an ethnically diverse – that is, Muslim – labour force; demonstrations. You know the story. Then this question in parliament that suggests that the Pakistanis grasp the significance of what is going on. Problems at the other end too. The Indian partner has had a bad press – the old man who controls the family business has been involved in some unsavoury, gangland nonsense.

  ‘The big picture is that we and the Americans want to work with India but we don’t want to burn our bridges with the Pakistani military who are important in stabilising Afghanistan, holding down the Taliban and helping with counter-terrorism. And you will have seen that there has been an escalation of military tension on the Indo-Pak border. Our assessment is that a lot of this is just rhetoric, but these countries have fought three wars already and almost fought a nuclear war not too long ago. So the advice is: kick the ball into the long grass.’

  The PM was orating from his armchair, his gaze directed at the ceiling. But when it came to the difficult part of the conversation he twitched nervously, paused for an uncomfortable period and forced himself to look vaguely in Kate’s direction.

  ‘This brings us to you. You have been unlucky. But if we get into a story of cancelled contracts and lost jobs, the Mail and the Sun will have you in their sights. My suggestion is that you leave the government quietly, now, before you are chased out. You can sort out your family issues. I will pay warm tributes. The chief whip will find you something important-sounding to do on the back benches; or perhaps in the whip’s office. Then, the summer recess is coming up; you can disappear for a month or so. Sorry, Kate. Politics is a cruel business.’

  She left the room mumbling ‘thank you’. No one else spoke a word.

  Kate walked back to her department through the rear entrance of Downing Street onto Horse Guards Parade. As the military personnel relaxed their grip on their submachine guns to let her through the iron gate, she attracted a friendlier grin and more rapid attention than, she suspected, her male colleagues would have done. She savoured the moment since there wouldn’t be many more. She recalled the phrase about ‘fifteen minutes of fame’; her fifteen minutes was up and in political equivalents it had been shorter than that. It hadn’t quite been the shortest ministerial career on record but she was definitely in contention.

  Up past the Treasury, down Storey’s Gate and along to her department to say goodbye. Susan had been told – and when they met a few tears were shed. They hadn’t worked together long but strong feelings of mutual respect and affection had developed. They sat down to exchange contact details and promises of lunch to catch up on gossip and go over the messy formalities of her departure (she smiled at the fact that, while she was there, staff from the government’s art collection were moving in her choice of paintings to replace the ghastly Victorian horror).

  As she was about to leave, Susan hesitated but then said: ‘There are a few things I haven’t troubled you with but I want you to know. I am not sure I should be telling you, but, technically, until the official announcement this afternoon, you are still our Minister.’

  Kate managed to raise a smile. ‘Go ahead. I’m all ears.’

  ‘A few days ago Caroline, the Secretary of State’s principal private secretary, called me in for a chat. Caroline is pure gold, a brilliant civil servant and utterly loyal to her boss. But she is a stickler for process. Would never allow anything to pass that isn’t absolutely kosher. She was quite upset.

  ‘Long story. I won’t give you all the details but it concerns the export licences that are needed for Pulsar’s equipment, as part of this big deal. Licensing is a separate, semi-legal process distinct from the stuff you have been doing and the licences would normally be cleared by the dedicated team of officials and, if necessary, one of the other m
inisters. Questions were raised both here and in the Foreign Office about what the Pulsar equipment might be used for. At first sight, it is exactly what it seems to be: part of a defence system.’

  Susan paused, looking around to check that no one was listening in before continuing.

  ‘But our technical people point out that there are other potential applications of a less wholesome nature. Powerful electromagnetic pulses that can knock out electric controls over a wide area could be misused by the wrong people. Our people think that we may be at risk of contravening the Anti-Proliferation Treaty we are signed up to. The officials are, of course, very cautious. Remember Saddam Hussein’s supergun? More recently the department was given a rollicking by a select committee for approving the sale of a consignment of window cleaning fluid for Syria. Turns out that the fluid contained chemicals that have nastier uses and there was enough of it to clean the windows of Damascus for several centuries. So they recommended refusal for Pulsar.’

  Kate nodded. ‘All this is consistent with those secret papers you showed me, so what is the issue?’

  ‘The issue is the so-called Red Admiral. Apparently he stormed down to where the officials sit and started haranguing them. “Obstructive jobs-worths” was among the more repeatable epithets. Claimed to be speaking on behalf of the Secretary of State and for the PM at one remove. Completely out of order. A lot of us wonder what the Admiral is doing in the department anyway. He is a “consultant”, not an official or even a “special adviser”. He’s attached to the MOD. But the Secretary of State gave him a room over the objections of Parsons, the permanent secretary. Parsons raised the whole issue of the Admiral with the Secretary of State but he brushed it aside. He got a lecture on “Overheads” not understanding the need for an entrepreneurial culture.’